Not happy? Tear down and rebuild

The Joffre Hotel in Monroe, NC circa 1919, https://monroenc.blogspot.com/2012/09/hotel-joffre-1918.html

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, commander of the Allied forces in World War I, celebrated his victory by touring the nation in 1921. He made one stop in North Carolina — at the Hotel Joffre in downtown Monroe.

Completed two years prior, Hotel Joffre advertised “100 rooms of Union County Comfort,” ranging from $1.25 to $2.00 a day. Salesmen and businessmen who traveled by train would lodge at the hotel, just a few blocks from the depot.

Two factors soon put Hotel Joffre on hard times — the popularity of the automobile took travelers off trains and onto highways, and the Great Depression.

Hotel Joffre became a slum shack over time and was renamed the less illustrious but more fitting Monroe Hotel.

It finally fell to a wrecking ball in 1996 to become a parking lot, as it is now.

Hotel Joffre’s story fascinates me because it reminds me that almost everything is temporary.

Everything is temporary, and that’s good news

Everywhere I go, new buildings pop up seemingly overnight, replacing razed structures that stood for decades. They’re not always grandma’s dilapidated farmhouse. Many were lovely two-story homes in the wealthy sections of town. But in their place, went up midrise, upscale multifamily townhomes. A corner lot that a family once called home now has twenty mailboxes.

A 10-screen theater at a prominent intersection is now a field of tall grass and daisies. Something new is coming soon!

An old Bank of America branch is making way for a two-story Publix grocery store.

The hospital that hatched me flattened a 4-story parking deck to expand its medical facility.

In 1986, the city of Charlotte broke ground on the coliseum where Hornets’ point guard, Muggsy Bogues, dribbled through the legs of NBA defenders. Twenty-one short years later, a developer demolished the $100 million sports arena to build a mixed-use development.

Eastland Mall was once North Carolina’s largest retail mall, two levels and over 1 million square feet. It was built in 1975 and housed an ice skating rink, a movie theater, and several restaurants. My friends and I would drop Snap-n-Pops from the second level to the floor below as unsuspecting shoppers walked by.

What would you expect of preteen boys who didn’t have the Internet?

City officials spent almost a million dollars to level the mall less than 40 years later.

Tear down and rebuild. Nothing is forever.

You know what else isn’t forever?

Your current circumstances.

The pain of your divorce.

The loss of a job.

A mountain of debt.

Your poor health.

Tear down bad habits, rip out the negative self-talk that loops in your mind, and rebuild anew.

Right now is fleeting and temporary.

Tomorrow can be better unless you sabotage it.

It’s your choice.

My rebuilding project

Almost four years ago, I was bored, fat, and discontented. So, on a whim, I signed up for a real estate licensing course. Six hundred study hours later, I passed the exam on my first attempt. I have no interest in selling real estate, but the experience lit a fire under my apathetic butt and started a personal rebuilding effort.

I lost 35 pounds of dead weight.

I read through the Bible 4x.

I did almost 15,000 push-ups last year.

I pursued writing. I took courses, earned certifications, practiced on Medium, and wrote two books. One is about starting a fantasy football league, and the other is about surviving midlife without a crisis.

And my full-time gig as a customer support rep is morphing into a content writer.

I couldn’t be happier.

But I had to beat the hell out of despair to become a will-do person. I always had the “can” but wouldn’t get off mine to do anything.

You can rebuild your life, too

Don’t let your sad circumstances become prominent fixtures in your life. Take a wrecking ball to them and rebuild the life you want. You can achieve your dreams one brick, one day at a time.

The city council finally decided to rebuild on the vacant lot where the 100-room Hotel Joffre once stood tall and proud. Want to know what they’re going to build?

Another 100-room hotel.

Yep.

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