2020-06-09 — The Next Challenge

Hey, folks. Hope y’all have had a wonderful day filled with peace and happiness and love. 😊

It’s been a rough one over here, so perhaps your days can balance out mine. 😊 The yin to my yang.

It was one of those days today where… I haven’t actually checked the totals, but I likely lost a good bit of money today. I’ll end up losing about $800-1000 on the first job of the day, a newer Audi where we ran into some issues with the electronic parking brake and ended up causing minor short-term inconsequential damage, but damage that in the long term *could* end up costing the customers quite a bit of money, so I offered to replace the parts, and it’s a newer Audi, so they ain’t no cheapo Chevy parts…

It wasn’t so much the lost money that was the main concern for me, though. It’s the concern I have about the differing views my tech and I have on what damage is and isn’t and what’s acceptable. To him, the risk is small that the little damage done would effect anything meaningfully, and he might be right, and he feels there’s not really a problem at all, even feeling that replacing the calipers could cause more problems down the line.

To me, though, a risk is a risk, and if something is worse off after we touched it, then I feel like we should replace it, or at least let the customer decide (assuming it’s our fault and not just a worn out car breaking when you do normal work to it).

Given our differing views of what’s acceptable, it leaves me wondering what to do. I hate confrontation/difficult conversations, especially when I’m the Jr when it comes to automotive knowledge, and I’ve already expected things of him that I found out later weren’t necessary.

Anyway, so for that and some other things, I’m questioning my own integrity a bit (that probably doesn’t make much sense without further context at the moment, but… yeah). I’m worried about what I do going forward.

With that and some other things going on, I started sinking into a bit of a depression today–discouraged… depressed. Then, of course, once that starts, it can be a wave. Then I start thinking about how I’m single with no prospects, and the fears of remaining so and of nobody wanting me or me not being able to choose somebody from among the billions, those fears all come back, and… on and on.

I’m doing a bit better as I write this, but it’s been a rough day, and I’m a bit low still, anxious, nervous, feeling apprehensive, feeling tentatively guilty, etc.

I guess we’ll see how I do pulling out of it and the choices I make going forward, eh?

On a brighter note, here’s one choice I’m making: I’m adding the next challenge to my list of things to keep track of. I’m finally gonna tackle my swearing issues. I went from being able to control my tongue through nearly any circumstance a handful of years ago, to being worse than an angry drunken sailor, as the saying goes, in the last year or so.

It’s time to stop, and I’m finally ready to take the challenge.

Swearing may be a bit cathartic in some ways. It may give me an avenue of expression that matches my emotion more accurately than other language I’ve used might, but it bothers me, I know it bothers others (though few people have even heard me swear. It’s a running joke with some of the AutoZone people that they want to hear me swear or get mad). I tell them I do–both–but they don’t really believe it.

Anyway, so I’m cleaning it up. I’m gonna start in stages, as expecting myself to cut a habit that’s become so automatic in some situations that I don’t even think about it, is not easy, and if my standard is cold turkey with no screw ups, then I’ll likely just get down on myself because I’ll fail too regularly.

So… my first stage is this: No premeditated swearing. If I swear, having recognized what I’m about to do before I actually do it, and I still choose to swear, that counts against me. Any swearing that flies out before I even recognize what’s happened, doesn’t count. I’m giving myself a full pass on those during stage one. We’ll take care of those during stage 2.

So… yeah… here we go. 😊

I’m pretty sure I swore at least once today (massive improvement over a normal day), and I think it might have been of the non-premeditated variety. So… I’m counting today in the books as 1 day completed having succeeded at Stage 1.

Wish me luck. 😊

I also had a fairly recent friend/acquaintance float the idea of running his shop for him, asking how much money I made and whatnot. That was flattering, but I told him that I’m on my way out of automotive and into humanitarian work. Interestingly enough, he’s headed the same direction and wants to have a meeting to talk about how we might join forces to help lift the world. I think we’re going to “meet” Thursday (he lives 4 or so hours away, so it’ll be a virtual meeting to start). It’s a bit exciting. 😊

Feeling like I was today and tired of all the stress and constant strain and wondering if I’m losing integrity, I found myself closer than ever to just hanging up the wrenches and being done. I’ve got a good nest egg again, but it’s not enough to provide a stream of income large enough to be self sufficient–not by a long shot.

Anyway, lots going through my brain today.

Che left today to go back to Liz’s, so she won’t be on my run with me tonight (yep, still have to go out on my run. It’s 10:46 right now, and I have some eating and drinking to do before I can go, but I wanted to write this.

I’m starting to feel myself slide a bit more into the dark here, so I’ll float out my gratitude now. Hopefully, it’ll buoy me up a bit.

#1. I’m grateful that I was able to handle the caliper situation this morning really well compared to my norm.

#2. I’m grateful to have my friend from Missouri to turn to for advice in situations like that. I called him to help educate me about what happened, so that I’d have a better idea of what the right thing to do was, and he helped significantly.

#3. I’m grateful that I don’t have Che to take care of anymore. She’s such a sweet dog, but she’s more than I can handle right now. She needs more attention than I can give her right now. She’s better off with more human contact than what I can give her. She just needs so much of it, or she’s not happy.

#4. I’m grateful to be moving forward and making progress. It’s a good time to add the next challenge (the swearing thing) to the list. The other ones have become fairly straightforward and easy at this point, with the exception of the exercise. That one is still a killer.

#5. I’m grateful to have you people–you who read and comment. You who read and don’t comment. Thank you for helping to change my life. It’s been really rough for me for years now, and today is one of those good days that’s a really hard good day (eyes are moist right now as I write this). But… as I used to say so regularly, “Bring it on.”

Good night, wonderful people, good night.

Lift the World.

~ stephen