Man, let me tell you about a time I really had to learn about tearing things down to build them up stronger. It wasn’t some grand philosophical revelation, just pure, gritty experience. I was stuck, you know? Like, really stuck. I had this big side project brewing for ages, something I was pouring all my extra hours into after my day job. It started off simple, a pretty straightforward idea, but then, like a mushroom cloud, it just grew.
I kept adding bits and pieces. “Oh, this feature would be awesome!” “And a little bit of that.” Before I knew it, I was juggling an online course, a premium content subscription, a small community forum, and even sketching out plans for an accompanying app. Each new addition felt like a stroke of genius at the time, but the reality was, I was stretching myself thinner than a flatbread. My sleep schedule went out the window, my stress levels were through the roof, and the “excitement” I felt at the beginning had turned into a heavy, grinding anxiety.
The Sagging Ridgepole
I knew something had to give. I could feel it in my bones, that dull ache of knowing you’re pushing a boulder uphill that’s just too big. One night, completely fried, I just grabbed my old I Ching coins. I wasn’t looking for a magic answer, just some kind of perspective outside my own messed-up head. I tossed those coins, counted the lines, and when I looked it up, it was Hexagram 28. Man, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
The core message was about “Preponderance of the Great,” and the imagery often painted a picture of a “ridgepole sagging” or a structure under too much weight. It was like the universe was holding up a mirror to my life. My whole damn project, everything I was trying to hold up, was a sagging ridgepole. I had piled too much onto a foundation that just wasn’t built for it – that foundation being my own limited time, energy, and resources. I had this grand vision, but the actual structure was about to collapse.
My first gut reaction? Defiance. “No way,” I thought. “I’ve invested so much! All those late nights, all that research, all those little breakthroughs. I can’t just throw it away. I’ll just work harder. I’ll optimize. I’ll find a way.” I tried to convince myself that if I just pushed a little more, it would all click into place. But deep down, that nagging feeling persisted. The Hexagram wasn’t telling me to push harder; it was telling me something was fundamentally unbalanced, that the very structure was flawed.
Stripping It Back to Build Stronger
It was a tough pill to swallow. I resisted the idea of cutting anything for a good couple of weeks. It felt like failure, like admitting defeat. All that effort, just to chop it off? But the image of that sagging ridgepole kept haunting me. What if it did collapse? What if all the little bits I had built ended up crumbling into nothing because I was too stubborn to make a drastic change?
Finally, I just had to face it. I had to embrace that change. It wasn’t about adding, it was about subtracting. I grabbed a notebook and a pen, and I listed out every single component of that project. Then, I ruthlessly evaluated each one. Which parts were truly essential to the core idea? Which parts were just “nice-to-haves” that were actually draining my time and energy?
I made the hard decision. I chopped off the plans for the app completely. I put the community forum on an indefinite hold. The online course? That became just a single, much-focused module instead of a sprawling series. My focus narrowed down to just the premium content subscription, and I refocused all my energy on making that one thing absolutely excellent.
It felt like I was tearing down parts of my own house, honestly. It was uncomfortable, even painful, to let go of those ideas I had once been so excited about. But as I simplified and streamlined, I started to feel something I hadn’t felt in months: lightness. The weight began to lift. I reworked the content, making it leaner, clearer, more impactful because I wasn’t spread thin across a dozen different things. I communicated with my few early adopters about the changes, explaining the new focus. Most of them understood; some even applauded the clarity.
The Strength That Emerged
When the revamped, stripped-down project finally launched in its simpler form, it was solid. It wasn’t trying to be everything to everyone; it was trying to be one good thing. People who signed up were getting a focused, high-quality experience. And I was getting my evenings back. My stress levels dropped significantly. I wasn’t constantly scrambling, patching holes in my sagging ridgepole.
That experience really drove home the lesson of Hexagram 28 for me. Sometimes, strength isn’t about how much you can pile on, it’s about the integrity of the structure. It’s about having the courage to look at something that’s overloaded and say, “Okay, we need to cut some of this weight.” Embracing that kind of radical change, even when it feels like you’re going backwards or giving up, can actually be the thing that keeps you from collapsing and allows you to build something truly strong and sustainable in the long run. It was a tough lesson, but man, I’m glad I learned it.
