Let It Collapse

Not all foundations are worth saving

Confession time: So, I’d written the title of this piece over a week ago, but I just couldn’t figure out how to pull the threads together.

Last weekend though, I watched this show on Netflix - it’s called Medieval. The protagonist, Jan (pronounced Ýan - fancy, right?) keeps repeating this phrase whenever he buries someone close to him: “Death brings life.”

And it struck me: That’s exactly what I wanted to say.

Death brings life.

Endings make space for beginnings. Collapses make room for something stronger. And once that clicked, it unlocked the juice. Lol.

I grew up on self-help. My dad’s library was stacked with titles like An Enemy Called Average and Think and Grow Rich. Those books shaped my early life philosophy: Never. Give. Up.

If the door was locked, you find the right key. If the key didn’t work, you break the door down. Giving up was failure, the kind you tell no one about.

It made me resilient, no doubt. But lately, I’ve realised not every door is meant to open, and not every foundation is worth saving.

Let me tell you a story: so, a few years ago, we built this social networking platform for Africans in the diaspora. It was supposed to help people find casual connections — friends, community, someone to share life with away from home. The pitch deck looked sexy. The TAM slide was shiny. Our early users loved the idea.

But we ignored some cracks in the foundation.

First, casual connections are great in theory, but they don’t generate the kind of return you need to stay afloat. Second, we didn’t factor in that this was peak remote work era, people were already living on Zoom. Who wanted more digital “Hey, let’s connect” pings when they were exhausted from staring at screens all day?

But because I was raised on “Don’t give up,” I kept pushing. More hours, more iterations, more mental gymnastics to convince myself we were just one tweak away from glory.

It felt noble at the time, like loyalty. But sometimes loyalty is just stubbornness in disguise.

Eventually, we made the hard call: Pivot. We let the old idea collapse and shifted to something that actually made sense. It felt like a funeral. We had no answers for ourselves, for our tiny team, for the people we’d told “This will change everything.”

But three months later, we had a buggy, half-baked version of the new product, and 30,000 users were knocking on our metaphorical door. We’d barely marketed it. We’d spent less time, less money, less stress. But the foundation was strong this time, the need was real.

Sometimes death really does bring life.

I’ve fought to keep more than a startup.

I’ve fought to keep friendships that had expired.

I’ve fought to keep a version of love that wasn’t really love anymore.

I’ve fought to keep parts of myself that were doing more harm than good, just because I once said, “This is who I am.”

But here’s the thing: not every decision is meant to be final.

Maybe very few are.

Marriage? Salvation? Sure - you wake up and choose those again every single day. And maybe that’s the point, those choices are living covenants, not dead commitments.

But your career? That project you’re dragging along out of ego or sunk cost? The friendship you’re propping up because you promised “forever” when you were 19 and didn’t know better?

Let it collapse.

Sometimes letting something die is the only way you make space for what’s meant to live.

Don’t get stuck because you once made a decision.

Don’t be loyal to something that can’t carry the weight of who you’re becoming.

Some doors are shut for a reason. Some foundations crack because they weren’t meant to hold the house you’re trying to build.

If it’s rotten, let it fall.

If it’s done, bury it.

And if someone looks at you like you’re reckless for walking away, just smile and say, “Death brings life.”

If you’re in that space…

I hope you find the courage to walk out of the crumbling house before the roof falls on your head.

You’re not giving up. You’re making room.

Let it collapse.

if you’re standing in a crumbling house you’ve outgrown, consider this your nudge. You’re not alone. Let it fall.

You can build something better!