In working with clients and colleagues over the past ten years I've come to believe that no matter where we are in our lives, we all share a craving for finding our own path in life. This is a very natural longing, and something that can become buried over time, but talk to anyone about their home for five minutes and you uncover a very personal sense of direction that is working itself out and wanting to be expressed.
Everyone has this desire, and when you find your path in life, you are at your most comfortable and powerful.
When I was an elementary school teacher (I taught for seven years before I started Apartment Therapy in 2001) I had a wide range of children and talents in my classroom. While some were stronger in some areas than others, I came to appreciate that those who were happiest were the ones who identified what they were good at early on and found a way to do it a lot and get better at it. Every child in my classroom had at least one talent. It didn’t matter if it was math or knitting, sports or art, children blossomed when they found their niche and were able to excel at it.
As an adult we crave this experience just as badly, but we often don’t allow ourselves to act on it, and it's hard to go through life struggling with things that we think we should be good at, but which are just not our native talents. When you identify your own native talents and begin to build a life around them, an ease and a sense of joy permeates even the toughest work.
Finding your own path can take time, but in my experience, our homes are one of the best places for starting to work it all out, because they are totally expressive of how we are doing. If your home is cluttered and blocked, you’re probably feeling it in the rest of your life. If your home feels good to you and you enjoy coming home and cooking dinner at the end of a long day, your work and social life are probably feeling pretty good too.
In this way, your home is both a foundation that supports you and a window into your soul.
Ever go on a date with someone, like them, and then visit their home, only to be terribly put off by what you see? Ever go to a party at the house of someone you don’t know, love the house and then find yourself immensely attracted to the person who lives there when you finally meet them? I have, and I don’t think this is at all surprising.
What you see in a home is where a person is truly at.
In a very real way, the experience of building a home becomes identical with finding one’s path in life. Call it your own personal workshop, petri-dish, or what you will, your home is the only place you have on earth to organize, beautify, make comfortable and otherwise express yourself. It is the only place you have that is all yours, and if you can do it at home, you can start to do it anywhere.
So Apartment Therapy, when you get into it, isn’t just about style and design, because for our readers, the home is just a taking off point. We’re about supporting and inspiring one another as we figure out how to design our lives. That’s why we do things like publish questions, organize monthly events, share children’s birthdays as well as reader’s homes, and post a ton of how-to’s.
We are aspirational, carving our own path and getting a little better every day.
Previous:
2. Your Home is a Path, Not a Place
Next:
4. My Path Has Been Twisty & Turny
Good Links
>> The Collyer Brothers via Wikipedia
>> Introduction to "The Ten Things..."
(Images: Top - Eric Slayton via Meter Gallery, The Rest - Yiming Wang's NYC kitchen, Justina Blakeney in LA from The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces )
Veronica & Keith's Handmade Chic 
Before & After: A Bathroom Goes From Pinky Peach to Sleek and Chic
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Hunslet Dinner Plate
A Beginner's Guide to Superb Stir-Fry: Quick, Healthy Meals from a Wok
Easy Pitcher Cocktail Recipe: Strawberry Basil Margaritas
Comments (27)
And this is why I love you guys! :)
fantastic summation Maxwell. I am often inspired by this poem and what it says about embracing change in one's home and life...
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks
I can identify so much with this post. I've been searching for my own path for a very long time. I am just now beginning to understand what that path is, what it means to me and how I can implement that spirit in my home. Thank you for writing this, I feel inspired.
Well done - a keeper.
I would so want to be friends with someone like you:)
And you are doing a great job!
Love this invitation for each of us to go our own ways with our homes - to stop copying and competing, and do more soul-searching. To make spaces that are true and beautiful and perfect to us, maybe only to us, the dweller. Who else matters or really cares after all? Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Very insightful. :)
Is that a Sally Mann photograph? Seems out of place...
What a lovely post! I think how we connect with our homes is quite primal. We need to carve out a niche so we can flourish and be a good citizen in the world.
Stellah, thanks for the poem!
Such an important post! Most of us know how many ways we can arrange our living spaces, and how choosing minimal over clutter can reflect our personalities. But so often we are unaware of how our space can control the way we feel in them. As an artist, objects are always being added and as I work on projects I notice how the clutter begins to close in on me. I'm forced to stop what I'm doing, clean up and reorganize . In doing that my mind also becomes uncluttered and clear. The space becomes open , empty and sacred awaiting my next creative urge.
NICE!!!
You hit the nail on the head. Thank you, Apartment Therapy, for being so awesome.
Thumbs Up!
What a wonderful empowering post. The poem is exquisite
I love the photo of the table by the windows. True urban paradise.
Apartment Therapy keeps me sane and inspired! Thank you :)
What a wonderfully conceived and well written post.
Your words speak to a genuine sweetness in this search for beauty and design.
Thank you, Maxwell.
Well said :)
¡Esto que has compartido con el mundo me ha hecho tanto sentido! Incluso me ha hecho entender parte de mi recorrido.
Te estoy muy agradecida, Gillingham.
Saludos cariñosos desde Chile.
Amparo.
Beautiful sentiments! <3<3<3 awwwwee :)
Homes are reflections of what we are... that is so true ! Inspiring post !
Very true. And that's why it's so sad some posters feel they should harshly criticize someone's home (home, not house). It's hurtful and totally unnecessary.
Keep up the good work Maxwell and thanks for the inspiring words :-)
I always appreciate the spirit of positivity and inclusiveness that infuses this site, and certainly Maxwell has a lot to do with that. It's great to see people's real homes, and it inspires me to focus on making my home the kind of sanctuary it can be for me and my family. Thanks to Maxwell, and to everyone who contributes and posts here, for sharing your homes with me.
Love love love AT :) Especially the style & community.
However! ;)
Please (!) consider a few things:
- whatever photographic filters you use results in this nice pics yes, but also in monotony where every location and season looks the same (warm southern lights anyone? crisp northern fall?)
- the web user experience is super clicky - this is a visual site, make it easier for us without sluggish Javascript and hard work with the mouse button
Ta.
Wonderful Post!
To everyone who may be on the verge of loosing their home for one reason or another remember this. We are not our homes. We have the miraculous ability to put our arms around someone and make them "feel at home". When faced with loosing everything we loose nothing important as long as we continue to feel the sense of home and belonging from others and within ourselves.
The places we live only reflect that warmth and hope that resides in all of us. Thank you Maxwell for sharing your experiences and wisdom.