The Magnolia Story

by Chip Gaines

By the way, my dad decided to sell his Firestone shop shortly after this. I went over and helped him clean out the attic one day, and guess what I found up there? The wicker sleigh that I’d fixed up nice with the garland and Christmas lights and put up for sale in his lobby was still there, tucked in a corner. I just shook my head. He bought it himself to give me a little boost of confidence as I got ready to open my store.

Sometimes when something is meant to be, it’s meant to be.

Sometimes worrying about something is much worse than the actual thing you’re worrying about. So really, what’s the point in worrying?

I realized that my determination to make things perfect meant I was chasing an empty obsession all day long. Nothing was ever going to be perfect the way I had envisioned it in the past.

It all came down to a mind shift in which I asked myself, “What am I going for in life?” Was it to achieve somebody else’s idea of what a perfect home should look like? Or was it to live fully in the perfection of the home and family I have?

Then I got to thinking about the bigger picture: If I’m going to sit around and say I am “just surviving” every day, well, guess what? When a big wave comes along suddenly, I won’t be surviving—I’ll be drowning! I mean, that’s life. Life is never predictable. Life is never really manageable. If your mind-set is always, “I’m just surviving,” it seems to me that would wind up being your mind-set for the rest of your life. You’d just get stuck in it. So I finally flipped the switch in my mind. I said, “I have to choose to thrive, even in the pain. Even when it’s tough.”

The miracle of that breakthrough moment for me is that I didn’t really let our situation get to me. I didn’t wallow in it. I didn’t allow it to dictate my happiness. I was scared, sure. But for now at least, we had our house; we had our kids; we had our health; and we were living this beautiful life together. And I told myself, “I want to make all that count in this season, because otherwise it’s just going to be a waste.” I didn’t want to look back at this experience and regret how I handled it. I wanted to say, win or lose, that we believed in love, that we had faith, and in essence we fought the good fight. I didn’t want to be found a quitter or a doubter.

“I’m not going to survive anymore. I’m going to thrive.”

I just realized that I had a choice to make in every moment, on every day, with every decision.

Most things in life are just beyond our planning and our control.

It was such a blessing to find myself thriving in the middle of the pain. Unless you find a way to do that, there’s always going to be this fake illusion that once you get there—wherever “there” is for you—you’ll be happy. But that’s just not life. If you can’t find happiness in the ugliness, you’re not going to find it in the beauty, either.

it’s up to us to choose contentment and thankfulness now—and to stop imagining that we have to have everything perfect before we’ll be happy.

new resolve: I would never forget that all of this is a blessing. I would never forget to be thankful—and to find joy.