I've never truly appreciated how much effort my father has put into building the brilliant house in which they live until recently. Upon reflection, I have a huge amount of affection and respect for him now for making our home so encompassing.
The student house is being re-done. Floors ripped up left, right and centre, and the over-whelming smell of woodchip. Not very homely. But the landlord needs to get it done to make the house last longer, so that next year's residents can enjoy it as much (or probably more) than we have, and he can continue to make money out of the house. But in the mean time, he's got four people paying him for nothing because our house is upside-down and doesnt feel like a home because weird little polish men are wandering around 24/7, drinking my tea, using my broom and making a heck of a lot of noise. (p.s. a new desire to stop swearing is what makes me speak so nicely of this current dilemma).
Refurbishing your home is a good metaphor for changing those things you don't like about yourself. There's no easy way, no quick fix that will ever be sustainable, and no shortcuts that won't bite you in the behind. You have to just rip up all the underlay, all the rotten floorboards and go straight down to the foundations; only when you can see the Earth beneath your feet, and you know that all you're stood on is mud and gravel and pure, natural stuff can you build again. You can't build yourself up when you're still broken. And in this process of finding your foundation, you'll probably find that more than one room has woodworm. Just rip it all up. If you don't do it all at once, it'll take longer next time. And this might take a lot longer than you'd planned, but those days of emptiness; of confusion, of feeling lost and like you don't know who you are or where you belong; those feelings are healthy, and help the process of rebuilding. Like I said, there isn't any shortcut to this process. But once you really feel like you're staring at the pureness that made Adam and Eve can you truly rebuild yourself and become a better person. You've just got to make sure you put things down in the right place, make those floors really sturdy and strong so that in a couple years, when you want a porch, or a conservatory, you're already half-way there.
[The moral of this story is not to always do things for right now. Do things that could help in 10 years. When they finally come into use, you'll be happier than you would be if you'd done it the day before. Invest in yourself. Try.]