Load-bearing wall

And then they are load-bearing walls.

Now, a load-bearing wall is different.

That wall is carrying weight from the structure above it.

And you cannot treat it like any other wall because part of the house depends on it.

But we never take the time and ask, how much weight are they carrying already? And that is the unusual angle.

Strength does not mean unlimited capacity.

A load-bearing wall is strong precisely because it is carrying something, which means that you should be more careful about what you add to it.

not less as some of you listening right now have become the low bearing wall in your family your friendships your workplace maybe even your household and everything seems to lean towards you nobody says or nobody wonders are you beginning to crack there is another distinction that we need to make helping people is one thing Caring people is something different.

It's the man himself, his coherence, his clarity about what he's actually doing and why, his ability to make a sound decision from something other than fear.

This is the only load-bearing wall in your entire life that's actually yours.

And it's the one that almost every man leaves standing empty because the outer walls paid him in applause and status and money.

and significance and this one pays him nothing anyone can see but a lifetime of watching and guiding men taught me this when that inner wall is strong a man can lose his outer one the job and the money and the standing and be still standing himself and then rebuild but when that inner wall is empty no amount of outer walls will ever make him feel secure because he knows underneath that not one of them is holding him up They're just surrounding him.

It is bound entirely, 100%, by mutual trust and shared history.

It makes me think of that load-bearing wall again.

There

it is.

We want them to be simple so we don't have to worry about them.

Because as Siobhan and Grace found out, in the most brutal, bloody way possible, assuming someone is harmless just because they are polite might be the most dangerous mistake you can ever make.

That sledgehammer to the load-bearing wall.

You never see it coming from the nice girl until the house is already coming down.