Am I who I am today because of Lego?

Christmas morning, 1977.

I race out to the living room to see what Santa has brought me, because without a doubt as four-year-old boy I had been exceptionally well behaved. There was a stocking full of sweets that I was forbidden from devouring before breakfast, and then my parents pointed out a few well wrapped parcels.

My sister is very much into preserving wrapping paper, I am more akin to a shredder ripping through it. I open one present to discover a building block set of the moon landing. This was my first ever Lego set, I could not contain my excitement, I’d seen it in the shops and the bright colours plus the ability to build it into whatever I wanted made the whole thing very appealing.

My enthusiasm resulted in me applying to the Lego box the same treatment that I had to the wrapping paper. All these years later, I wish I could tell that rambunctious child that preserving the box is also important. But at the time I just needed to recreate man walking on the moon, in brick form. By modern day standards the set was basic, but I loved it and over the years I would religiously build it over and over again.

From that moment on, I was hooked. I loved everything about Lego, the possibility of building my own city, I could explore space, I could be master of everything I saw. No other toy had such a profound impact on my life. It is only now looking back that I realise the power of Lego as a toy.

The love of building

Yes, Lego is about building. But there are two types of builds:

Follow the Plan builds: follow the instructions and build so that it looks exactly like the packet. This the first build I believe all Lego fans go with. You bought the set because you wanted that set, so now you are going to build that set.

Follow your imagination: The only limit here is the number of bricks you have. This is where you build something out of your head. I think every child has something that they want to try to build, and Lego always afforded that opportunity.

For me as a child, I would do a build off the plan first, and then see what else I could build or design. I am an introvert and my family lived out of town, so I didn’t have a lot of friends around all the time. But it didn’t matter because I had Lego and that was heaps of fun. I could build and re-build different things. I could build something until it was perfect and then make it better!

As I progressed through school, I embraced my love of designing and building and went on to become an engineer. Although not a civil engineer, I had also learnt the possibilities of computing so became a computer systems engineer. I could design and build other things in a virtual world, but the foundations of that desire came from Lego.

What toy can connect a boy with his Dad?

I said before that I’m an introvert, but my Dad is an extreme introvert. He’s the sort of guy that will sit in a car with you for several hours and you might get five words out of him. The thing is, growing up nobody told me what an introvert was, so I just thought Dad was cranky a lot of the time. Also Dad worked away a lot, so we didn’t always get to see him as much as would have been nice.

But let me tell you, if Dad was home and I had a new Lego set, his eyes would light up as much as mine. He’d happily help me with the build, or just be there talking to me during the build. Then when I would get vehicle sets, he’d be keen to help out and play along.

This connection helped us connect in adult life too because we could both indulge our love of restoring classic cars. Dad taught me about working on cars, again because he’d seen how I loved to make and re-make things with Lego. To this day Dad and I don’t have much in common, but we can talk cars for hours on end, and when he sees my adult Lego builds, he will talk about that too.

Also responsible for a career shift?

Ok so when I said before I was an engineer…

Ok I got my Bachelor of Engineering, but then kind of took a different path to the traditional engineer; I became a cop. We won’t get into the dilemmas that caused at home with both my parents not overly keen on police, they pretty much got over it after I had been in the job for about ten years.

So why does that get a mention? Well because I had police Lego sets as a kid. I could recreate scenes from Starsky and Hutch, CHIPS and any other police show that was on at the time. Racing places with lights and sirens, saving the day. I’m sure helped me want to be someone who could help people.

Look, I know it’s a long bow to draw. I also had space sets and a post office and didn’t pursue either of those careers. However, I would happily take a job with NASA if they are offering, and I like getting mail so there’s a very clear nexus.

Fiscal responsibility

I want to get the new space set, and the new Technic set, and...

Let’s be honest, over the years if you love Lego, you spend a LOT of money. So as a kid I had to learn to save up. When I wanted to get a new big set, I’d have to save the meagre pocket money I got from my parents. I have a birthday just after New Years so that means that the toy sales are often on, so I could save Christmas and birthday money up to buy a decent set on sale.

You also must learn to live with disappointment. Rarely would the hot set that year be left after Christmas or be on sale. There was no online ordering of sets so if it wasn’t in the shops, you weren’t getting it. But I learnt that if a big set wasn’t there, I could buy a few small sets and make my own fun out of that. It didn’t always work out that I’d be happy but as soon as I’d built a new set I would usually forget.

How does Lego help me today?

How doesn’t it help me today should be the question. Number one, it’s the best stress management tool next to exercise that I have. I left policing about 12 years ago and am now a senior public servant, and there are days I come home in the World’s grumpiest moods. So, I dig out either a new build or an old build and put it together. It is the ultimate exercise in mindfulness.

I am now responsible for staff across a range of ages including those in their early 20’s. There aren’t many things that I can relate to them about (except apparently there’s a song about Wireless Access Points by some singer called Cardigan I think). But do you know what so many of my younger staff like? Lego. The fact that we have similar sets is good, but I do get a lot of cred when they see some of my “antique” (according to them) sets. Even though Lego was invented about forty years before I was born, I’m still seen as someone who grew up around Lego.

Lastly, much like my Dad before me, I can now engage with my daughter through Lego. She loves her Duplo train, although it now comes with an app that lets it play sounds and change colours. She will sit on the floor in my office and play with one of my sets, under very close supervision of course. But again, I love seeing her push her imagination to build a house with eyes on the wall, or a dinosaur, or whatever she wants.

I’m very grateful to have grown up with those acrylonitrile butadiene styrene bricks to build a world.

If you like this story, please feel free to tip. I have lots more Lego I need to buy.