Sunday, April 20, 2008

Engine Light

Life can be tough. Sometimes it can feel like everyone and everything is out to get you. No matter how hard you try to get ahead, there is always something new that is trying to pull you down.

Here's an example: You think you have total control over a situation and everything is running smoothly, but then, mysteriously, your freakin' engine light comes on. We've all had that happen! It just happened to me yesterday and I was super bitter. What the hell?! Why now! When things are finally starting to wind down and I feel some sense of control over the occurrences in my life, my bloody engine light has to come on and make things just a little more complicated. What did I do to deserve this? Why did that light just happen to have turned on when I glanced at it while driving down the road? It was like it was taunting me. "Haha, sucka! Try fitting this inconvenience into your busy life!". Sometimes I wonder if engine lights are programmed to turn on once every 40,000 K just so that the dealerships can make an extra $600. I wouldn't put it past them. And the thing is, you can't ignore that light. It is bright, it is orange and it stares at you every single time you turn your car on. Personally, I wish that it will magically disappear one of these start ups. Vroom Vroom...no more light! Unfortunately that probably won't happen. I'm gonna keep wishing though.

There really are two ways to view a crappy situation like this. One way is to do just what I did above and lay blame and be an angry and bitter soul. It really doesn't get you far though. It gets you frustrated and panicky, but it doesn't solve anything.

Luckily, there is another way to view the situation; You can be positive and put your energy into solving the problem. Wow. It sounds so simple. I should just phone the flippin' dealership and book in, shouldn't I?!

It happened, deal with it.

I guess this post is a little personal therapy session for me. I want to continue to be in a state of contentment and optimism, but I slowly feel like life, not gymnastics, but life, is dragging me down. I let the little things build up and then I have a freak out. All I want is to be able to focus solely on gymnastics and my Olympic preparation and not have to continually be juggling a million different errands. I know what you are thinking. I know that this is the way life is for everyone, but I also know myself really well and I know how I work. I work best when I go to bed dreaming about my routines and not about my car breaking down!

K

3 comments:

TLewis said...

Last week while driving home from a training camp, my engine light came on. Every other time it has come on I have had this strange premonition the day before...driving, I would look down at the light and just know that it would come on the next day and, sure enough, it would. But this time it didn't, and I almost lost it.

Everything seemed to come to a very fast boil. I have been trying very hard to stay financially afloat (something which, on a single gymnastics coach's salary in Atlantic Canada is very hard to do), trying to find a way to go back to school next year, and just dealing with a lot of personal baggage that I really haven't been wanting to deal with. So when that little light came on, the only thing I could think of was how I was going to afford a trip to my local Volkswagen dealer (the first time since my warranty ran out).

After an hour or two of being really depressed, I decided that I wasn't going to worry about it...that it wasn't such a big deal, and I would find some way to deal with it; it would all be alright. It sounds dumb, but when I let the light go I let all my worries go, and at the same time realized how much they had been weighing me down lately.

The next day: the light turned off.

Good luck in the next few months!

Trip

Anonymous said...

you need a horse and buggy
uncle

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