9000 Years

Grace and I visited Dublin a couple months back, and one of the spots we toured was the Guinness Storehouse.

Beyond learning how to pour the perfect pint and split the G, we discovered that Arthur Guinness signed a 9000-year lease in 1759. 9000 years. The gall. The gumption. The vision.

It left me with a single question for reflection since. Below are my musings:

A Better Storehouse

At the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, high above the city in a glass room built for looking out, I saw a copy of the lease. Nine thousand years. Arthur Guinness signed it in 1759—for a brewery, for a dream, for something he could not possibly live to see completed. Nine thousand years is more than ambition. It’s more than optimism. It’s devotion in ink. A kind of holy audacity. The belief that something you start could matter long after you’re gone.

I stood there, stunned—not by the marketing or the myth-making, but by the sheer scale of that commitment. He signed it like he meant it. Like he knew the foundation was solid. Like he trusted the future to carry what he began.

And it made me wonder:

What’s my 9,000-year lease?

What am I willing to plant now, knowing I may never see it fully grown? What work feels worth giving myself to—not for the outcome, but for the offering? We live in a world of quick wins and instant returns. But the lease said something else. It whispered endurance. Legacy. Faith in real time.

Sometimes I think the work I do is too small to be seen. Too slow to be significant. But maybe the Storehouse has something to teach me—not about beer or branding, but about vision. About trusting that unseen things are still unfolding. That a hidden foundation is still a foundation.

The truth is, I don’t know if I’m building a cathedral or sweeping its floors. But either way, I want to show up like it matters. I want to sign my name to something that outlives me—not in fame, but in faithfulness. A kind of living lease, renewed each day by how I love, how I create, how I choose to believe in beauty even when it goes unnoticed.

Maybe the Storehouse I’m building isn’t made of stone and glass, but of presence. Of stories told well. Of moments tended with care. Maybe my lease isn’t a document, but a practice: to keep showing up. To keep pouring myself out. To keep trusting that what I’m making, even in obscurity, is worth the time it takes.

Guinness signed for 9,000 years. I sign for today. And tomorrow. And the next. Not because I know what will come, but because something in me believes it’s still worth building.

* * *P.S. In case you're wondering, yes, this is the story behind the lyric: "A thousand years times nine is wild..." from "The Long Way In."