What Are We Leaving Behind?

Our house is an old one, at least by the standards of the neighbourhood in which we live, where houses from the 1940s are increasingly finding themselves surrounded by younger, shinier neighbours.

It has been added to, altered, repaired, and occasionally subjected to decisions that leave me standing in the middle of a room, staring at something peculiar and wondering what on earth the previous owners were thinking.

And yet, I adore it.

There is something reassuring about a house that has lived a few lives already, particularly one that makes no attempt to conceal its age. Ours has dark wooden walls and ceilings, floors that have endured generations of footsteps, and an assortment of architectural peculiarities that reveal themselves slowly, usually when we're in the middle of trying to fix something else.

Every renovation seems to uncover another chapter of its history.

Some discoveries are delightful, while others are considerably less so, particularly when they involve peeling away multiple layers of wallpaper, uncovering questionable electrical work, or discovering the creative interpretation of structural principles.

But even the frustrating ones remind me that this house existed long before we arrived, and that the people who came before us left their mark upon it, whether they intended to or not.

And now, for a little while, it's our turn.

A house is never entirely ours.

I find myself thinking about this quite often as we work our way through the renovations.

When we bought the property, we inherited more than buildings and land. We inherited decades of decisions, improvements, compromises, unfinished projects, and the accumulated consequences of things done well and things done badly.

Somebody planted the trees that now tower over the garden. Somebody laid the hardwood floors, built the outbuildings, and made the changes that transformed an earlier version of the property into the place we know today.

Somebody also covered a stunning hardwood floor with blue carpet, although I am trying very hard not to hold that against them.

The point is that everything we encounter has a history, and every decision we make becomes part of that history in turn.

We can restore what has been neglected, preserve what deserves to survive, and introduce something new where the old no longer serves its purpose. We can also make mistakes, some of which may not become apparent until long after we've forgotten making them.

And while we may hold the title to the property, I don't think ownership quite captures the nature of our relationship with it.

Stewardship feels closer.

We have the privilege of caring for this place for a chapter of its existence, and with that privilege comes a responsibility to consider what our choices will mean beyond the years we happen to spend here.

It's a thought that changes the way I look at things.

The temptation to start again.

There is a certain appeal to wiping the slate clean.

Old houses are inconvenient. They rarely accommodate modern expectations without protest, and they have a talent for turning simple improvements into complicated projects.

Sometimes it would undoubtedly be easier to tear something out and replace it with something new, and sometimes that's exactly what needs to happen.

But I have become increasingly interested in the distinction between something that is genuinely beyond repair and something that has simply become unfashionable, inconvenient, or a little more difficult to work with than we'd prefer.

There is a kind of wisdom in old things, not because age automatically makes them valuable, but because survival itself can tell us something.

The original wooden walls of our living room have been standing for more than eighty years. They have witnessed countless conversations, family evenings, celebrations, disagreements, and all the ordinary moments that make up a life.

They are not especially fashionable, at least not in the conventional sense, and the room has a decidedly masculine character that I am currently having tremendous fun challenging with colour, texture, and dramatic lighting.

But I wouldn't dream of covering those walls.

I want to work with them, to create something new in conversation with what already exists, rather than pretending the past was never there.

And perhaps that's part of what draws me to restoration.

It asks us to be imaginative without being careless, to recognize the value of what we've inherited while still allowing ourselves the freedom to make it our own.

What survives us.

The longer I work on the house, the more I find myself thinking about the idea of legacy, although not in the grand, monument-building sense in which the word is sometimes used.

I'm thinking of the smaller things, like the tree someone planted without ever expecting to sit beneath its full-grown branches, or the craftsmanship hidden inside a wall, performed carefully by someone who knew that nobody might ever see it.

I'm thinking, too, of the decisions that make life easier for the people who come afterward, and the equally small decisions that leave them shaking their heads in disbelief. We are all, in one way or another, leaving evidence of how we chose to spend our time here.

And this is where my thoughts tend to wander beyond the house and into the other parts of life that occupy so much of my attention, because organizations, like old houses, are built in layers.

They inherit histories, cultures, systems, habits, and assumptions from the people who came before. Some of these foundations are strong and deserve to be preserved, while others have been deteriorating for years beneath a perfectly respectable exterior.

A new leader arrives, looks around, and begins making changes, perhaps bringing fresh ideas, energy, and a welcome willingness to challenge the status quo. They may see opportunities that others have overlooked, or recognize problems that have become so familiar they're barely noticed anymore.

But the decisions they make will shape the working lives of people they may never meet, including those who join the organization long after they've moved on.

And I wonder how often we think about leadership in those terms, not simply what we can accomplish during our tenure, but what condition we leave the place in when we're gone.

The difference between building and improving.

I have worked in organizations where growth was celebrated with enormous enthusiasm, where new business, increased revenue, and ambitious plans were treated as evidence of success, while the less visible work of maintaining the organization received considerably less attention.

It's easy to understand how this happens. Growth is exciting, measurable, and full of possibility, while the work of strengthening the foundations of a business tends to be slower, less visible, and harder to celebrate.

Training gets postponed as more immediate priorities take over, systems remain outdated because replacing them requires time and investment, and capable people absorb additional responsibilities because they're good at what they do, and because everyone has become accustomed to their ability to make things work.

The organization continues to function, sometimes remarkably well, and from the outside there may be little indication that its foundations are becoming strained. Inside, however, the people holding everything together may be working harder and harder simply to maintain the same standard.

Eventually, the consequences begin to appear, perhaps in the quality of the work, perhaps in the morale of the people doing it, or perhaps in the uncomfortable realization that the business has become dependent on a handful of individuals whose knowledge and dedication are supporting far more than anyone fully appreciates.

These are not glamorous problems to solve, and they rarely produce the sort of announcements that attract attention or applause. But there is something deeply satisfying about making an organization stronger in ways that may not be immediately visible, about improving the conditions under which other people can do good work, and about knowing that the benefits may continue long after we've moved on.

I think that is a form of ambition worth celebrating.

Not simply to build something impressive, but to leave something sound.

A responsibility to the future.

Our property backs onto a stream connected to the Alouette River, and during spawning season there is something almost magical about knowing that salmon are making their way through the waterways around us, following an ancient rhythm that has very little interest in our renovation schedule.

It reminds me that the land has its own life, one that extends far beyond the boundaries of our property and the relatively brief period in which we happen to call it home.

We have plans for the gardens, for new spaces to create and work, and for making the property more useful and welcoming to the people who share it with us.

But increasingly, I find that the question guiding those plans is not simply what we want to build.

It's what we want to preserve.

What deserves our care? What can be improved? What should be left undisturbed?

And how do we make room for our own lives without forgetting that we are part of something much larger?

These are questions of stewardship, and they apply just as readily to the organizations we lead, the communities we belong to, and the relationships we cultivate.

We inherit things of value, whether we recognize them immediately or not, and for a little while we have the opportunity to shape what happens next.

Leaving the lights on.

I don't imagine we'll ever finish renovating this house.

There will always be another project waiting in the wings, another idea taking shape, another corner that could use some attention, and I suspect that's part of the pleasure of it.

The work is never really finished, because a living place is always changing, just as the people who inhabit it are always changing.

But I hope that one day, when somebody else takes their turn caring for this property, they'll find evidence that we loved it.

Not because everything will be perfect, or because we will have managed to impose our vision upon every last corner, but because we took the time to understand what was here, repaired what needed repairing, and tried to make thoughtful decisions about what came next.

I hope they'll discover a few things that delight them, and if they encounter something that makes them stop, scratch their heads, and wonder what on earth we were thinking, well, I suppose that's part of the tradition.

Perhaps the same is true of the organizations we leave behind.

We may not be remembered for every decision, every improvement, or every problem we resolved along the way, but the people who come after us will inherit the consequences.

And I think there is something both humbling and hopeful in that.

We don't have to leave everything exactly as we found it.

We simply have to care enough to leave it a little better.