Patrick Hutchison is a writer and builder. His work has appeared in Outside, Wired, Vice, Seattle magazine, and Seattle Weekly. He left a job in copywriting to pursue carpentry, and now he spends his days building tiny homes, cabins, and treehouses.
What’s the big idea?
A jaded office worker, straining against the tethers of his desk job, decided to buy and renovate a rundown cabin in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. This is the story of Patrick Hutchison, who followed his passion to a massive career shift. In this—his first—book, he shares priceless life lessons for finding and living your true calling.
Below, Patrick shares five key insights from his new book, Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman. Listen to the audio version—read by Patrick himself—in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Embrace the reality. Don’t chase the dream.
Owning a cabin is an enchanting dream. My reality of it, however, was drastically different than the fantasy—the reality was so much better. I’ve spent far too many hours on Instagram gazing hypnotically at images of cozy log cabins covered with fresh blankets of snow, and big wood stoves roaring inside. I’d see those pictures and think that looks amazing. And in reality, that experience is amazing. But the fantastical scene in a photo doesn’t convey that inside, you’re with your best friends who you haven’t seen in a month, and you just spent an hour outside breaking down firewood, and you’re finally just starting to warm up, and you don’t have to go to work tomorrow. And you haven’t even considered what’s happening in the outside world in at least 12 hours.
Cabin life and the projects that went along with it were often hard and frustrating. Keeping the fire fed, washing dishes outside in the freezing rain was a pain, and walking into the property when the snow was too deep to drive. You had to work to be there comfortably, but that work made the resulting comfort impossibly rich. Working on the cabin was a frequent and welcome reminder that life is not easy, but we can only expect out of it what we put in. It’s often the effort we put into it where all the best moments happen.
My favorite memories of the cabin don’t include the scenes you’d expect to find on Instagram. They were all recollections of mundane tasks and maintenance: filling hurricane lamps, chasing out mice, investigating leaks, building things, and working to make life a little better out there in the woods.
2. Conjure a community of collaborators.
One of the most unexpected pleasures of cabin life was the community that went along with it. My typical social life consisted of fellow twentysomethings, musicians, artists, and hipsters, probably in and around Seattle for the most part. We listened to the same music, read the same books, and watched the same movies. Working on the cabin ripped me out of my comfort zone in more ways than one and forced me to foster connections with folks that I never would’ve otherwise met. Eclectic neighbors and charismatic contractors from all walks of life were suddenly regular points of contact in my day-to-day life. Sometimes, these encounters were nothing more than a passing wave. At other times, they were longer conversations or a helpful hand on a hard project.
“Working on the cabin ripped me out of my comfort zone.”
The takeaway was always an appreciation for a way of life quite different than my own. Taken together, the community of collaborators and neighbors at the cabin fostered greater respect for others, even when I thought I was a very open-minded person to begin with. The community was also a reminder to get out and meet folks face-to-face whenever possible. It’s all too easy to send a DM or email or leave a voicemail, but there’s something special that happens when you can meet up, shake a hand, and connect with someone on the same ground.
3. Celebrate the effort, not the outcome.
Any accomplished carpenter would probably view most of the work I did on the cabin as a failure. Crooked cuts, bent nails, and sloppy measurements abounded in the finished product. But each flaw bore a memory of a good time out in the woods, usually with a good friend. Or the flaws made me reflect on how I started with absolutely zero clue how to do anything, and I’d feel proud that I’d gotten to a point where there was anything to reminisce about.
Obviously, we all want to succeed, whether it’s renovating a cabin, getting a promotion, or asking a crush out on a date. It feels bad to try for things and blunder or fail. Working on the cabin and often coming up short of perfection left me with the irrepressible belief that there’s something almost more impressive about failing so long as you keep going. When you fail, it forces you to find ways to celebrate the effort rather than the outcome. If it’s the effort that starts to feel like the payoff, then you’ll always try again and again and again. Regardless of the outcome, the effort becomes what you chase until, eventually, the point is not whether you fail or succeed but whether you find satisfaction in the effort alone. When it’s the effort you want, you’ll try harder, you’ll get better, and none of it will matter because you’re too busy enjoying the task at hand.
4. Spend more time in the woods.
This seems like an obvious one, as easy to ignore as advice to drink more water and get more exercise. But something incredible happens when we are stripped of our phones and digital connections. The lack of these tethers sets us free to reconnect with ourselves and others in far more meaningful ways. I cannot stress enough how valuable an experience it is to cozy up in an intimate space without phones or Wi-Fi or TV or central heating and simply connect with people in analog ways. Play board games that sound dumb. Listen to music actively instead of using it as background noise. Make ceremonies out of simple things like drinking tea or lighting incense. Be bored. Being utterly, truly bored is a wonderful state of existence because it forces you to get creative with your time and pursue even the most trivial of curiosities with your full attention.
“The lack of these tethers sets us free to reconnect with ourselves and others in far more meaningful ways.”
While I think the best way to get the benefits of disconnecting is to spend more time in a cabin with little more than a wood stove and a pack of cards, I get that life is full, and sometimes it’s hard to get away. If that’s the case, find other ways to create that experience. Go to a new park and have a meal with a good friend while you leave your phones in the car. Take a wandering walk with no destination. However possible, force yourself to disconnect every once in a while.
5. Practice passions your way.
In my early twenties, I grew my hair out, bought a fixed-gear bicycle, and (among a litany of other similarly stereotypical Pacific Northwest endeavors) decided to learn how to play the guitar. Almost 20 years later, I’m still trying to learn, but I’ve kept it up more or less regularly for the entirety of that time. I nearly quit several times, mainly because my perception of how I should be learning clashed with how I wanted to learn.
I could never shake the thought that I should be taking proper lessons, reading music theory books, or practicing scales ad nauseum, but I couldn’t stand this way of learning. After a few years of this struggle, I happened upon an interview with one of my favorite musicians. Someone asked him the best way to practice. His response, though simple, completely changed my attitude toward learning: “Whatever makes you want to pick up the instrument, whatever makes you enjoy playing, that’s the best way to practice.”
After years of weekend renovations on the cabin, I felt fairly confident that I was ready for a career shift. I’d been a writer for nearly a decade and couldn’t stomach the thought of another ten years behind a desk. The problem was my work on a tiny ramshackle place in the woods hardly felt like the sort of resume that would get me work. As a carpenter, I needed to learn more, but when I looked around at the entry-level construction jobs around me, they didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to work on million-dollar homes in the city. I wanted an education that kept me in the woods. So, I followed the same advice I’d heard about music. I quit my job and, with the help of good friends, built a cabin from scratch out in the mountains on my own terms. Now, I spend my days working as a carpenter for a treehouse company. Basically, I guarantee that wherever I am, I’m working on a small, intimate structure out in the trees, out in the woods.
To listen to the audio version read by author Patrick Hutchison, download the Next Big Idea App today:
