The Magnolia Story

by Chip Gaines

There’s this movie, Legends of the Fall, where the character named Tristan goes off into these wild places.

I’m gonna put up with this for as long as I have to. But the second I don’t have to put up with it anymore, I’m out. And I’m gonna live every day for the rest of my life as if it’s Saturday.

Maybe I messed up. I feel like I’m living every day as if it’s Monday!

One thing my dad would preach to us when it came to money was, “I’ll provide your needs, but you have to take care of your wants.”

For my dad, achieving goals was basically a mathematical equation: “If you hit a hundred balls a day and you work out this many hours, this many times a week, then this is what happens and you win state championships.”

I wanted to work while I was going to school, to get outdoors, to start my own business. And I knew I would have to give something up if I was going to find the time to do that.

He wanted me to go out and hit the proverbial hundred balls every day, to give it my all no matter what I was doing.

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

Well, he wound up paying as much in taxes that first year as he’d made the year prior to that, so he quickly got passionate about finding ways to save on taxes. He got some advice from an accountant, and the accountant suggested they should divert some of their income by investing in some properties and businesses.

To me, it’s a motivation thing. Comfort is what you do when you retire, so if there’s any way you can keep pushing off that “I’m completely comfortable” idea, then it keeps you a little wily; it keeps you young; it keeps you hungry.

even room for a pergola and a little outdoor eating area.

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. Did I want to keep spending my energy on that effort, or did I want to step out of that obsession and to enjoy my kids, maybe allowing myself to get messy right along with them in the process? I chose the latter—and that made all the difference.

That’s all anyone seems to post—perfect pictures of perfect families enjoying perfect moments.

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.

If you can’t find happiness in the ugliness, you’re not going to find it in the beauty, either.

Letting it all go is freeing. (And it’s cheaper too!) I am learning that getting our intentions right simplifies our decisions in life and changes our perspective. And in the end, what it’s all about is thankfulness and contentment.

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.

Go and find what it is that inspires you, go and find what it is that you love, and go do that until it hurts. Don’t quit, and don’t give up. The reward is just around the corner. And in times of doubt or times of joy, listen for that still, small voice. Know that God has been there from the beginning—and he will be there until . . . The End.