The Unfinished Blueprint

2,160 words, 11 minutes read time.

The diesel engine of Marcus Read’s F-150 rumbled in the driveway at 5:15 AM, a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated through the steering wheel and into his calloused palms. In the gray, pre-dawn light of a Tuesday in November, Marcus sat in the cab, his breath fogging the glass as he scrolled through a backlog of work orders. He was the lead foreman for Miller & Sons Residential, and he was currently three weeks out from finishing the “Ridgeview Estates” project—a luxury subdivision that had become his entire world.

If he brought this project in under budget and ahead of schedule, the year-end bonus wouldn’t just be a paycheck; it would be a rescue boat. It would wipe out the credit card debt from last Christmas, cover the rising property taxes, and finally put away enough for the kitchen remodel Sarah had been talking about for three years. He told himself this was his duty. A man works. A man provides. He held onto that mantra like a religious text, using it to shield himself from the quiet guilt that gnawed at him every time he saw his family through the rearview mirror.

If he wasn’t on-site by sunrise, the subcontractors slacked off, the framing stayed crooked, and the margins slipped. To Marcus, those margins were the measure of his worth. As he backed out of the driveway, his truck’s headlights swept across the garage door. He didn’t notice the “Good Luck, Dad” sign his daughter, Mia, had taped there. It was decorated with glitter and a drawing of a blue ribbon for her science fair. He was already miles away, calculating the board footage for the white oak flooring.

By 10:00 AM, the job site was a cacophony of circular saws and pneumatic nail guns. Marcus moved through the skeletal structures with a clipboard in one hand and a thermal carafe of black coffee in the other. He was a king in this kingdom of sawdust and mud. Here, people listened to him. Here, things made sense. If a beam was off, you shimmed it. If a pipe leaked, you tightened the fitting. There was a direct, satisfying correlation between his effort and the result.

“Read! We’ve got a problem in Unit 4,” shouted Miller, the owner’s son. “The inspector is saying the HVAC clearance isn’t up to code. If we don’t fix this by tomorrow, the whole closing schedule shifts. We’ll lose the Q4 window.”

Marcus felt the familiar surge of adrenaline—the “fixer” high. “I’ll handle it,” he snapped. “I’ll stay late and re-run the ducting myself if I have to.”

“Good man,” Miller said, clapping him on the shoulder. “This is why you’re the best we’ve got, Marcus. You’re a machine.”

Marcus felt a swell of pride that tasted like ash. A machine. It felt better than being a husband who couldn’t remember where the extra trash bags were kept. It felt better than being a father who didn’t know the names of his daughter’s teachers. He leaned into the work, the sweat stinging his eyes as he climbed into the cramped, sweltering attic space of Unit 4.

His phone buzzed in his pocket at 3:30 PM. It was Sarah. He ignored it. He was elbow-deep in galvanized metal and foil tape. It buzzed again at 4:00. Finally, he pulled it out, his thumb smearing drywall dust across the screen.

Marcus, the science fair starts at 5:00. Mia is asking if you’ll be there for the awards. She’s been crying because the volcano model is still gray. You promised you’d help her paint it tonight. Please.

He looked at the unfinished ductwork. If he left now, he’d lose the momentum. The inspector was coming at 7:00 AM. If he stayed, he could guarantee the win for the company. He could guarantee that bonus. He typed back: Stuck at the site. Emergency with the inspector. Tell her I’m so proud and I’ll make it up to her. I’m doing this for us.

He didn’t wait for a reply. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and picked up his snips. I’m doing this for us, he whispered to the empty attic. It was the lie he used to cauterize the wound of his own absence.

By 9:00 PM, the job site was a graveyard of discarded lumber and silence. Marcus was the last soul there, his headlamp cutting a lonely arc through the dark as he packed his tools into the gang box. He was exhausted, his lower back screaming, but the ductwork was perfect. He had won. He had saved the schedule. He climbed into his truck, the heater blasting against the November chill, and headed home.

As he pulled into the driveway, he noticed the house was unnaturally dark. Usually, the porch light was on, or the glow of the television flickered through the living room curtains. Tonight, the windows looked like empty sockets.

He unlocked the front door, the click of the deadbolt echoing in the foyer. “Sarah? Mia?”

Silence greeted him. It wasn’t the peaceful silence of a sleeping household; it was the heavy, hollow silence of a vacuum. He walked into the kitchen. The air felt cold. There was no smell of dinner, no stray shoes by the door, no hum of the dishwasher.

He saw a stack of papers sitting on the granite island, held down by his wedding ring.

Marcus picked up the top sheet. His hands, thick and steady enough to frame a skyscraper, began to shake. At the top, in stark, formal lettering, were the words: PETITION FOR LEGAL SEPARATION.

His eyes skipped down the lines, catching fragments that felt like shards of glass. Irreconcilable differences… habitual absence… abandonment of emotional duties. He looked toward the stairs, his boots thudding heavily on the hardwood as he ran up to the master bedroom. He threw open the closet doors. Sarah’s side was a cavern of empty hangers. Her jewelry box was gone. The photo of them on their honeymoon in Cabo was missing from the nightstand.

He sprinted to Mia’s room. Her bed was made with a chilling, final precision. He looked toward the corner where the science fair project had sat for weeks. The volcano was there, but it wasn’t gray anymore. It was painted a vibrant, fiery red—but the brushstrokes were all wrong. They weren’t the careful, guided strokes he had promised to teach her. Beside it, the presentation board was filled out in a neat, feminine script that wasn’t Sarah’s. It was the neighbor’s handwriting. Someone else had stepped in to be the father he refused to be. Someone else had held the brush. Someone else had heard her excitement.

He stumbled back down to the kitchen and collapsed onto a barstool, the legal papers crinkling under his weight. He looked at the high-end appliances he had worked eighty-hour weeks to afford. He looked at the designer backsplash he’d stayed up until midnight installing. He looked at the vaulted ceilings and the expensive flooring.

He had built a palace of “stuff,” convinced that every hour of overtime was a brick in the wall of his family’s security. He had justified his pride, his workaholism, and his avoidance of the messy, vulnerable parts of being a man by calling it “sacrifice.” He had gained the whole world—the Ridgeview project was a masterpiece, the bonus was coming, his reputation was ironclad.

But as he sat in the dark, clutching the document that signaled the end of his life, Marcus Read finally understood the math of his own soul. He had traded the only people who actually loved him for the approval of men who would replace him by Monday.

He reached for his phone to call her, but he realized he didn’t even know where they had gone. He didn’t know the name of Mia’s science teacher. He didn’t know what Sarah needed when she was lonely. He knew how to build a house, but he had no idea how to live in one.

The “machine” was finally alone. Marcus put his head in his dust-covered hands and let out a sound that wasn’t a foreman’s command or a provider’s boast. It was the sound of a man standing in the ruins of a kingdom he had built for nobody. He had won the promotion, but in the silence of the empty house, he realized he had lost everything else.

Author’s Note

The story of Marcus Read is not a cautionary tale about a “bad” man. In fact, by the world’s standards, Marcus is an exemplary man. He is disciplined, a “top performer,” and a high-income, good provider driven by a desire to give his family the life he never had. He isn’t out at bars or chasing scandals; he is exactly what society tells a man to be: a tireless engine of success.

But Marcus fell into a dual trap that claims thousands of well-meaning men every year. The first is the internal trap: the belief that our provision is a valid substitute for our presence. The second is the external trap: a modern culture—and sometimes even those closest to us—that demands a lifestyle well above our means, silently encouraging a man to work himself into the grave to fund a standard of living that no paycheck can truly satisfy.

We see this play out in the wreckage of divorce cases every day. A man is cheered for his “hustle” and his ability to provide luxuries, only to be vilified for his absence once the relationship withers. It is a hollow cycle. We tell ourselves we are building a kingdom for our families, but as Jesus warned in Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

For Marcus, his “soul” wasn’t just his eternal destination; it was the essence of his life—his connection to his wife, the heart of his daughter, and his identity as a man of God rather than a “machine” of industry. He traded the irreplaceable for the replaceable. He forgot that while Miller & Sons would have a new foreman listed on a job board within forty-eight hours of his departure, he was the only man on earth designed to be Mia’s father and Sarah’s husband.

Workaholism is often just pride in a high-visibility vest. It is the refusal to be vulnerable and the misplaced hope that our value is found in the size of our bank account rather than the depth of our character. We hide in our offices and on our job sites because, in those places, we are in control and we are “valued” for our output. But God does not call us to be “top performers” at the expense of our homes; He calls us to be faithful.

If you find yourself sitting in a truck at 5:00 AM or staring at a laptop at midnight, ask yourself: Who am I really doing this for? Is it for the family, or is it to satisfy an insatiable appetite for more “stuff” that the world—or even your household—tells you that you need? Remember that your family would rather have a father who is present for the “gray volcano” moments than a father who provides a luxury house that feels like a tomb.

Don’t wait for the silence of an empty house to realize that your greatest “win” isn’t waiting for you at the office. It’s waiting for you at the front door.

Call to Action

If this story struck a chord, don’t just scroll on. Join the brotherhood—men learning to build, not borrow, their strength. Subscribe for more stories like this, drop a comment about where you’re growing, or reach out and tell me what you’re working toward. Let’s grow together.

D. Bryan King

Sources

• Genesis 11:1-9 NIV – The Tower of Babel – Bible Gateway
• What does the Bible say about workaholism? – GotQuestions.org
• An Admonition to Workaholics – Desiring God
• The Pride of Babel and the Praise of Christ – Desiring God
• Psalm 127: A Word for Workaholics – Bible.org
• The Perils of Pride and Self-Sufficiency – Tower of Babel – NIV Bible Blog
• Tower of Babel – Answers in Genesis
• Luke 12:13-21 NIV – The Parable of the Rich Fool – Bible Gateway
• Matthew 6:19-34 NIV – Do Not Worry – Bible Gateway
• Ecclesiastes 2:17-26 NIV – Toil Is Meaningless – Bible Gateway
• Colossians 3:23-24 NIV – Instructions for Christian Households – Bible Gateway
• Too Many Christian Workaholics – Paul Tripp
• How Can I Know If I’m Working Too Much? – The Gospel Coalition
• Towering Pride: What the Story of the Tower of Babel Can Teach Us – Archdiocese of Washington Blog
• Beware Our Tower of Babel – Christianity Today

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.

Who is running the show here? The to-do list, or the person working it? It’s hard to tell sometimes. For all the joy and beauty word nerds find in the written word, words can also become burdensome. Unyielding task masters.
I'm the graphic designer and bit monkey for #wordsbyterryl, terryl is the author and we are back from hiatus.

How do you use lists in your life and to what effect?

https://blog.moonlitpress.org/word-nerd-4-the-list

#CreativeNonfiction #writing #newMoon
#Word #Nerds
#Workaholism
#Humor

Is workaholism a mask for pain? Sometimes, constant hustle hides what we’re afraid to feel. Productivity isn’t always healing. 🕰️💔

https://de320.isrefer.com/go/startsqac8day/Stuartn/
 
#Workaholism #MentalHealth #HealNotHide #ThinkandGrowEducation #RayBehan #Emotions #QAC

Our new cross-cultural psychometric study on work addiction is now live and can be freely downloaded from this link: https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.2025.00005

Thanks to all colleagues and in particular to Dr. Edyta Charzyńska and Dr. Pawel Atroszko.

#workaddiction #psychometrics #workaholism

Why We Feel Isolated in a Connected World – The Empty Promise of Social Media

The guiding star of Alderian psychology is that we derive meaning from connection to community1. That we can only feel connection to a community when we are useful in it because we are contributing meaningfully to that community2.

Why don’t we feel connected?

Philosopher: Take, for example, a man who, on reaching retirement age and stopping work, quickly looses his vitality and becomes depressed. Abruptly cut off from the company that was his community and bereft of title or profession, he becomes and “ordinary nobody.” – The Courage to Be Disliked Pg 173

In his podcast Cal Newport regularly comes back to the idea that social media provides pseudo-connection to it’s users. You scroll Facebook and see the updates your friends are making about their children or the latest event they’ve participated in. While doing this you feel connected to them, but you haven’t interacted with them face-to-face, or even via phone, so none of the real emotional connection happened.

You feel connected without any of the true rewards of connection, hence describing connection via social media as pseudo-connection.

Looking at this from Adler’s vantage point, social media allows us to feel like we’ve connected with someone without ever being of service to them in any way so something deep inside us doesn’t feel fulfilled and thus we aren’t creating any connection to them. The connection we did have is fleeting, it evaporates as soon as we’re not looking at the screen so we head back to a screen to get more connected only for this type of ephemeral connection to fall through our grasp again at every turn.

Another strong point behind lack of connection is the workaholic mindset that dominates much of the western capitalist world. In this world the 9-5 captures evenings and weekends leaving us with no time to connect with others3. Jobs expect us to be available via our phones or laptops even when outside of work hours so you don’t really have a 9-5 job. What you have is regular mandated hours and then compulsory hours on call if your job decides it needs your, or has cut back staff so much that you can’t finish your work during the regular workday hours so you have to work extra hours without extra pay.

Hustle culture also contributes to the lack of time to create connections. We continually focus on how to work better without spending equal effort on how to rest better4 or how to make deeper connections with the community around us. We are told by everyone around us that if we have a hobby it should be turned into something monetizable so that we have side hustle5 but your hobby better not be too weird so the only real6 creativity that is allowed is creativity that can be monetized.

How do we feel connected to community?

People who are left naked and alone by radical individualism do what their genes and the ancient history of their species tell them to do: They revert to tribe. Individualism taken too far, leads to tribalism. The Second Mountain Pg 34

Given all the forces working against us creating connection in community, and thus finding meaning, how do we go about changing that?

Strong Towns suggests that the first step is getting out and being of service to your community is a way of building connections. Using Mark Dunkleman’s idea of the three rings of relationships from The Vanishing Neighbour working side by side with people that are in your community builds the second ring of relationships which is people we know personally but don’t interact with at the deeper level reserved for friends and family. This is your neighbour 5 doors down that you greet while walking the dog and stop for a quick chat, but don’t invite over for dinner. You see them on the street during a street barbecue, but that’s the extent of your intimate interaction.

These type of relationships are built when you head out and pick up garbage together during a city wide clean up. When I borrow a tool from my neighbour’s extensive mechanic tools or fix his bicycle with my extensive bike knowledge, we build second ring connections in the community while also being of service to those around us.

I remember this happening in my childhood. My dad would be in the driveway with the hood of the car up and most days some neighbour would stroll over to chat and see what my dad was doing. Only one other neighbour on the street had car expertise, but many of them would stop by. These casual contacts turned into my dad heading over to other houses sometimes to help with car repairs, or a street wide fence building weekend where all the dads put the holes in and set the posts for 20 houses then each family worked on their own fence over the next week. Burgers were grilled, drinks were delivered by children and the community grew closer.

As I stated above, I borrow some mechanic tools and expertise from my neighbour. I’ve been intentional about not purchasing some tools so that I borrow them. My neighbour was thinking about purchasing an extension ladder, but then found I had one so just borrows mine instead. I lend my snowblower to the neighbours across the street when there is a heavy snowfall and the kids are out shovelling. We trade childcare assistance on many weekends with a single mother across the street with her daughter spending nights so mom can work, and this weekend when the family is going many different ways, she’s taking my 8-year-old to a birthday party up the street and making sure she gets home safely.

This isn’t news though, Benjamin Franklin used this to great affect getting former enemies to be friendly simply by borrowing a book he knew they valued. He spent the time to read it and then commented on it to his former enemy, who then had more to talk about in the realm of books.

#community #communityEngagement #hustleCulture #socialMedia #workaholism

Why We Feel Isolated in a Connected World – The Empty Promise of Social Media
The guiding star of Alderian psychology is that we derive meaning from connection to community1. That we can only feel connection to a community when we are useful in it because we are contributing meaningfully to that community2.

Why don't we feel connected?

https://curtismchale.ca/2025/02/15/we-need-community-connection/
#3Threads #community #CommunityEngagement #HustleCulture #SocialMedia #workaholism

The path from digital-age workaholism to mindful productivity is not about rejecting technology or ambition, but about cultivating a wiser, more balanced engagement.

#teknoetics #workaholism #mentalhealth #buddhism #hedonictreadmill

https://teknoetics.substack.com/p/when-busier-is-better

"#Tech runs on myth-making. From the outside, the #startup world seems like a meritocratic utopia churning out innovations that "change the world." But beneath the surface, there's a far more troubling reality.
Tech is powered by #bullshit. It's the only sustainable energy source #SiliconValley successfully harnessed. It’s a world rife with exaggerated claims, wealth inequality, and #workaholism wearing a mask of passion…"

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/how-startup-culture-runs-on-bullshit

In this week's show we discuss the perils of #workaholism and being #workaholic and the effect it has on your #ManBlues

Listen here: https://shows.acast.com/man-blues