Crappy Stuff

I'm starting to have very little patience with the crappy stuff in my life. Time is getting too precious to spend 5-6 hours diagnosing a problem on my car, going to the store to get repair parts, researching how to install and reinstall the broken parts, getting out my tools, actually doing the install and reinstall, testing the fix, cleaning up the car, and cleaning up myself.

It really pisses me off when the fix doesn't work. You've invested the requisite time, and sometimes the replacement part itself is broken. It happens. Like this weekend. I replaced my starter motor with a remanufactured unit from Kragen. It was broken, too. Of course, I didn't discover this until the repair was completely finished. So now I have to remove this broken unit, take it back to the store, and get another one. What a frickin' PITA. It's going to take me another 1.5-2 hours to install this one and try all over again.

There was a time in my life when I would look forward to fixing things that were wrong with my car. It made me feel good about knowing I could fix it. Now, I get nothing but pissed off when my car breaks.

Of course, my wife's car has bad trailing arm bushings, too. I decided to do the work myself. I'm not looking forward to it. It seemed like the right thing to do to save money. But now, all I can think about is time. Weekends are so short as they are. And when there's 5-6 hours of work work to do, who wants to spend that plus another 5-6 hours working on a car?

I'd rather play hoops, spend time at the gym, catch up on sleep, movies and TV. The weeks are so long, and now the weekends are short, too.

I guess the lesson learned here is to be very deliberate about allowing crappy things to control my time and my life.