When I was in junior high school my dad bought an old farmhouse in Vermont. It had been deserted for a couple of years, and the house had no electricity or running water—though there was a nearby spring. Heat came from an old wood stove. In real estate terms it was an extreme fixer upper. For us, it was a weekend/summer place. At that time I was the oldest of five children, and now I marvel that my mom went along with this.
Priorities for repair looked obvious—running water and electricity. But even though they were very important, they were not first on the list. The sills had rotted out and needed to be replaced. These were the large beams under the house that sat on the stone foundation. If they weren't replaced, the house could cave in just the way the barn had a few years before we bought the place.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to invest a lot in something if the foundations aren't sound. That's true on the macro scale as well as on the micro scale. One may be striving to make a better world or to rebuild a house or a life, but in either case, the foundational work is essential.
