“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”
― Plutarch
The Basílica de la Sagrada Família, also known as the Sagrada Família, is a remarkable unifinished structure built in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Originally designed by Antoni Gaudí, the Roman Catholic church is scheduled to finish its construction by 2026.
The original construction date was March 19, 1882, so it would have taken 144 years if it will have been finished by 2026. However, the Sagrada Familia’s director-general Xavier Martinez mentioned the fact that the construction of the church has been delayed due to the global pandemic, and the new completion date could be in 2030, 2035, or 2040.
“The construction board and people have always had the will to move forward and overcome. Our goal is to make Gaudi’s beautiful project a reality”, said Chief architect Jordí Faulí. During its century-old history, the church has encountered multiple construction stops and delays because of lack of funds and most recently the pandemic.
Despite its challenging history, the project is moving towards its goal, thanks to those who contributed themselves to the project, believing in the power of construction’s beauty that could touch people’s hearts across generations. And the church’s unfinishedness is sometimes referred to as things or projects that don’t know their end. For instance, JR Shinjuku station in Tokyo, Japan, one of the world’s busiest transportation hubs, is sometimes called Tokyo’s Sagrada Familia by locals because of its endless constructions. The station is a massive maze, even for Tokyoites, and has whopping 200 exits!
Not only for construction projects, but we could use the Sagrada Familia as a metaphor for our own personal projects that don’t know their end, couldn’t we? It could be anything. Anything we’re working on that doesn’t know its end. The endless journey to learn physics, algebra, mathematics, science, universe, and languages. We all deserve our own Sagrada Familia in our hearts.
To accomplish our version of the Sagrada Familia, half-assed efforts won’t get you anywhere. To truly build and accomplish it, you must devote yourself to the end result. The endless curiosity to satisfy your thirst for knowledge helps you to build your Sagrada Familia, re-defining the next-generation theories to change the world as we know it today.
When you decide to build your Sagrada Familia, life could get pretty lonely. While this world is so busy making you behave like everyone else, you still have to follow your heart. Even though you may need some help from others from time to time, you’re essentially on your own to accomplish what you started. And let the whole world know you’re trying to build your own Sagrada Familia! Maybe you could hear some laughter in the crowd, but that might be the pressure you need to fuel your motivation. Life is a journey. Life is a long-solo-marathon. Life could be lonely, but once you finish building your own Sagrada Familia, the last bit of laughter will be heard from you.
The reason people stop building their own Sagrada Familia is essentially because they don’t have enough reasons to convince themselves to continue working on it. A boy who once was talented in math stop learning it after school simply because he couldn’t transfer the skill to solve real-world problems. A girl who used to be fluent in a foreign language stops speaking it because she couldn’t find an occasion to actually use it. To start building your own Sagrada Familia and accomplish it, you have to find a way to use it to solve real-world problems.
There always is a way and dedicate yourself to the end result, and once you find your own way to contribute yourself to the world around you with the skill you’ve got, anything, including building your own Sagrada Familia is possible.
For me personally, my Sagrada Familia could be learning algebra, programming, and English. Especially, when I was a kid, I hated math and algebra and made every effort to avoid them. But once I start working as a programmer, I found a strong relationship between algebra and any kind of coding language (in my case it’s Java). By learning them, my journey to explore the STEM world is almost endless, and it’s such a joy to satisfy my thirst for my knowledge.
Now it’s your turn. Do you have your own Sagrada Familia? Is there anything you’re currently working on that could bring you to an endless journey to learn fascinating knowledge?
Hope you have one because we all deserve our own Sagrada Familia…
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