Good morning! It’s Hump Day! I hope your day is starting off well.
My day started with prayer. Well, okay, I did brush my teeth and get breakfast first. Then I went outside to start the car. The old one. The one that got a new battery yesterday. That’s when the revival started. Oh, the battery worked fine. But apparently when I opened everything up yesterday to replace it, Mother Nature filled the fuel intake with something cars don’t like.
That’s why I don’t like working on my own car. Well, that and the rusted battery clamp that won’t tighten down. It’s good enough to make contact and spin the starter, but just loose enough to leave me stranded the first time it snows. And, as luck would have it, that’s supposed to happen tonight. Lovely.
I used to do all the work on my cars. Not because I particularly enjoyed it, but there was a time in life when I couldn’t afford a mechanic. You know, like yesterday. Okay, I could have let somebody else change the battery, but the car wouldn’t start, and my wife isn’t willing to push it to the shop. Hey, somebody has to drive.
I learned to work on cars out of necessity. And that’s when I earned my Master’s in profanity. Mark Twain once said you never really learn how to swear until you learn how to drive. Wrong. Drivers are amateurs. Try replacing the front hub on a Dodge truck after road salt has worked its magic on aluminum and steel parts. I didn’t own a sledgehammer until that day. I do now.
My grandson wanted to help. He was only ten at the time, and better at asking questions than turning a wrench. Still, I was happy to have the company. The instructions said to remove three bolts and slide the hub off. The instructions lied. My daughter asked me afterward if I taught him any new words. No, he already knows the words. But I did teach him about proper usage.
That was the day I decided I’m done working on cars. Okay, that’s the day I said I was done working on cars. A month later I had to replace the other hub. And four years after that, I had to do it again. Both sides. Over the years I owned that truck, I replaced parts I’ve never seen on any other vehicle. That truck was the epitome of Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong …
Okay, so I’m sure the good folks at Dodge Motor Company would prefer that I didn’t publish this piece, but that’s what they get for making that piece. Still, that’s not really the point I wanted to make. Let’s just say sometimes life has its little bonuses, okay?
There are things we do throughout life that we’d rather not do, but for one reason or another, we have to. Like eating broccoli and paying bills. But beyond that, there are those things that we do simply because somebody has to do it and the kids have moved out. Until two years ago, my grandson still thought it was fun to mow the lawn. Guess who does it now?
I have a good friend who, as she and her husband built an extremely successful business, has built a list over the years of things she’ll never do again. I would imagine scrubbing around the base of the toilet is near the top of that list. With four kids, including a couple of boys, I’m sure she did that a time or two. But now she doesn’t have to. That’s the beauty of success.
Are there things you do that you’d rather not do? Could a little extra income give you some options in that regard? Nobody likes to waste money, but I’ve come to the realization that whatever a mechanic charges to climb under my car, he earns. And it’s worth it to me to sit comfortably in the customer lounge reading a book while he does the dirty work.
My list of things I’ll never do again is pretty short, but it is getting longer with age. How about yours? Do you have a list of things you’d rather hand off to somebody else? Would a little extra money let you do it? You know, money is a renewable resource, and you’re allowed to have as much as you want. You just have to be willing to earn it. And that’s where we seem to come up short.
We all have to do things we’d rather not do. But that list gets smaller when you tackle the things that are standing in your way today and make them work to your advantage. They may seem unpleasant at first, but in time they’ll be as routine as turning a wrench. You may never come to love doing them. But just think how many others you can check off along the way.
That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!
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