Lessons of the day
There were some lessons lurking for me today.
The pressure tank on our household water system has been out -- wouldn't hold pressure for long, the bladder was shot. (The role of the tank is to maintain a background pressure, so that the pump doesn't have to run just because you flush the toilet.) While waiting for the financial fluidity to front the money to replace the tank, it was possible to keep up the integrity of the system by charging the tank each morning with an air compressor, a task doable but tedious.
Today I finally went to pick up the tank, got it home, and got my first little lesson of the day: whereas the Home Depot website had assured me that adapter fittings were included with the unit, there were none in the box. Just a little reminder about trusting Purported Reality over Real Reality. Trips to both local hardware stores gained the part I needed, but it took quite a while to hunt it down. Once the part was on hand, actually installing the tank was anticlimactic and took less than five minutes. The system is working fine now.
After monitoring the performance of the tank for awhile and being sure that the system was working properly, I went out to work in the garden -- something, I have come to realize, I typically do after any frustrating interaction with equipment or technology.
As I pulled weeds, with Einstein the Dog and his playmate Casey happily splooshing about in the irrigation water, I ruminated over my reactions to the challenges of the day. After several weeks of having to daily address the problem with the water system I was sure 'nuff ready to be done with it, so when the required part was not in the box, necessitating not only a trip back to the store(s) but also a tiresome search for the right adapter, I was balanced on the knife edge of getting rather grumpy about things.
But I was raised by folks who were raised on farms. Both of my parents grew up rural -- my father was driving a produce truck into Boston at the age of 13 -- and people raised that way tend to have a pretty practical way of dealing with things. Both of them also spent time in the military, a place where a methodical approach to necessary tasks is implicit. And, I have come to realize and better appreciate, they passed some of this viewpoint on to me. Why waste time and energy on flipping out over a problem, when that same time and energy can be applied to resolving the problem as quickly and cleanly as possible?
While I was thinking about this, I had a fresh appreciation for the analytical approach they inculcated in me: look at a problem, see how you can fix it, decide if you can fix it. When I was a kid, if the toaster went on the fritz we didn't just throw it out and buy a new one, we took it apart first to see if it could be fixed. (Which it usually could -- often, they just need a good cleaning. I did just that here at the house last week.) We did our own landscaping, built our own walls, fences and outbuildings, maintained the infrastructure of the property. If something broke or wore out, we would always take a stab at dealing with it before calling in the (expensive) specialist.
Living with and from that viewpoint, you pick up skills and accumulate tools which help you address problems. One important tool is a good handle on your own abilities, what you can achieve with a little thought and determination, and also a realistic sense of your own limitations and when you really do need to call in the specialist.
Another important tool is the belief system that one can fix things, that if you stay calm and examine things from several different angles and gain some insight into how the whole darn thing is supposed to work, you are already halfway to seeing it working again.
There are some increasingly specialized devices in our hands now, things which truly do need priestlike specialists to fix, and things which are often better replaced than actually repaired. And this causes many of us to sometimes feel helpless and at the mercy of the specialists. But there truly are still many things in our lives we can control, problems we can address, if we only take the time to think it through and keep the faith that we are capable of fixing problems.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. It took me a while to fully appreciate it, but your teaching and example has always helped me to approach a problem as reasonably as possible, and helped me feel less at the mercy of the vagaries of the universe.
The pressure tank on our household water system has been out -- wouldn't hold pressure for long, the bladder was shot. (The role of the tank is to maintain a background pressure, so that the pump doesn't have to run just because you flush the toilet.) While waiting for the financial fluidity to front the money to replace the tank, it was possible to keep up the integrity of the system by charging the tank each morning with an air compressor, a task doable but tedious.
Today I finally went to pick up the tank, got it home, and got my first little lesson of the day: whereas the Home Depot website had assured me that adapter fittings were included with the unit, there were none in the box. Just a little reminder about trusting Purported Reality over Real Reality. Trips to both local hardware stores gained the part I needed, but it took quite a while to hunt it down. Once the part was on hand, actually installing the tank was anticlimactic and took less than five minutes. The system is working fine now.
After monitoring the performance of the tank for awhile and being sure that the system was working properly, I went out to work in the garden -- something, I have come to realize, I typically do after any frustrating interaction with equipment or technology.
As I pulled weeds, with Einstein the Dog and his playmate Casey happily splooshing about in the irrigation water, I ruminated over my reactions to the challenges of the day. After several weeks of having to daily address the problem with the water system I was sure 'nuff ready to be done with it, so when the required part was not in the box, necessitating not only a trip back to the store(s) but also a tiresome search for the right adapter, I was balanced on the knife edge of getting rather grumpy about things.
But I was raised by folks who were raised on farms. Both of my parents grew up rural -- my father was driving a produce truck into Boston at the age of 13 -- and people raised that way tend to have a pretty practical way of dealing with things. Both of them also spent time in the military, a place where a methodical approach to necessary tasks is implicit. And, I have come to realize and better appreciate, they passed some of this viewpoint on to me. Why waste time and energy on flipping out over a problem, when that same time and energy can be applied to resolving the problem as quickly and cleanly as possible?
While I was thinking about this, I had a fresh appreciation for the analytical approach they inculcated in me: look at a problem, see how you can fix it, decide if you can fix it. When I was a kid, if the toaster went on the fritz we didn't just throw it out and buy a new one, we took it apart first to see if it could be fixed. (Which it usually could -- often, they just need a good cleaning. I did just that here at the house last week.) We did our own landscaping, built our own walls, fences and outbuildings, maintained the infrastructure of the property. If something broke or wore out, we would always take a stab at dealing with it before calling in the (expensive) specialist.
Living with and from that viewpoint, you pick up skills and accumulate tools which help you address problems. One important tool is a good handle on your own abilities, what you can achieve with a little thought and determination, and also a realistic sense of your own limitations and when you really do need to call in the specialist.
Another important tool is the belief system that one can fix things, that if you stay calm and examine things from several different angles and gain some insight into how the whole darn thing is supposed to work, you are already halfway to seeing it working again.
There are some increasingly specialized devices in our hands now, things which truly do need priestlike specialists to fix, and things which are often better replaced than actually repaired. And this causes many of us to sometimes feel helpless and at the mercy of the specialists. But there truly are still many things in our lives we can control, problems we can address, if we only take the time to think it through and keep the faith that we are capable of fixing problems.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. It took me a while to fully appreciate it, but your teaching and example has always helped me to approach a problem as reasonably as possible, and helped me feel less at the mercy of the vagaries of the universe.
posted by InsightStraight @ 11:10 PM
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