How to Ruin Your Life

The art of breaking, rebuilding, and leaving something that lasts.

It’s strange how we travel halfway across the world just to stare at what’s broken.

Lately, I’ve been stuck on this word — ruin.

AI defines it as “the remains of something once whole that has fallen into disrepair.”
But that feels too clinical.
Ruin, to me, is the poetry of what’s left behind — the beauty that time couldn’t quite erase.

Somewhere, in a small town or a big city, there’s a girl with a list — her dream list.
She wants to see Machu Picchu.
The Acropolis.
The Colosseum.
She wants to stand where history still breathes, where stones whisper stories older than her language.
She wants to feel the chill of ancient walls beneath her fingers — to touch what survived.

I think of my great-grandparents.
They left Germany with nothing but hope and hard hands, building a new life in America from the ground up.
They worked every day to create something that would last — a home, a future, a chance.

But near the end of their lives, they grieved.
They never went back.
They never saw what had become of their homeland — what war had taken, and what it had given back.
The destruction.
The regrowth.
The ruins.

It’s wild how ruins draw people in.
Millions travel across the world every year just to see what’s left — Pompeii, for example, a city frozen in time by volcanic ash.
They stand there, in quiet awe, staring at what was destroyed… and what still somehow remains.

When you think about the people who built those places, it’s kind of funny.
They weren’t building for perfection.
They weren’t planning to be remembered for thousands of years.
They were just creating something that mattered then.

I can’t be sure, I’m only 30, but I doubt a Roman thought,

“Let’s make this perfect so future tourists can take selfies with it.”

They just wanted to build something that stood out.
Something different.
Something real.

And maybe that’s the point.

What blows my mind is that we travel to admire these ruins — things that don’t even know we exist.
We touch them.
We’re moved by them.
But they’ll never know our names.

So why is it that when we see ruin in people, we don’t see the same beauty?

Why can’t we see the grace in what’s cracked, the strength in what’s been through fire?

You could live your whole life playing it safe — coloring inside the lines, doing everything “right.”
You’d avoid mistakes, sure.
But you’d also avoid legacy.

Elizabeth Gilbert once wrote in Eat, Pray, Love:

“Ruin is a gift.”

And maybe she’s right.

Because ruin means you tried.
You built.
You risked something worth losing.

And maybe — just maybe — I’ll ruin my life.
Not out of carelessness, but out of courage.
Out of wanting to build something that stands out, even if it breaks.

Because maybe, one day, when the dust settles, what remains — my ruins — will tell a story.
Not of perfection, but of persistence.
Of beauty that didn’t fade, even when everything else did.

Because maybe the real beauty of ruin isn’t what’s lost
it’s what refuses to disappear.