One of the nice things about growing older (not old, but older) is that you tend to learn valuable lessons even from seemingly mundane tasks. Saturday was the first time I actually tried to mow our backyard. A few days earlier I had tried to start our mower, but it refused to crank up. So Saturday I asked our neighbor if I could borrow theirs while I took mine to the repair shop. When I got back to our yard, I looked at our mower and decided to try to start it again. This time I sprayed a little WD40 in some areas that may need lubrication and tried to start it. After trying several times the machine fired up. Lesson #1 for the day: don't give up so easily. I realized that I give up on mechanical problems a lot easier than I give up on computer problems. Why? Is it lack of knowledge and understanding? Perhaps so. I decided then that, since I will be using small engines (mowers, weed eaters, etc.) for as long as I can see in the future, I will enroll in some sort of course to learn to work on them. I may not be able to fix every problem (some situations require special tools that would not make sense to buy) but I will learn to handle the smaller tasks (such as fixing the pull rope that starts my mower).
As I started mowing I realized that my usual mowing pattern was not going to work -- some portions of the lawn were too tall for my mower. I quickly changed to a different pattern rather than forcing the issue. Lesson #2: be flexible and observe for the need to change.
Mowing progressed slowly but surely, and I found myself enjoying more and more the nicer lawn I was seeing. I finished mowing in what seemed no time at all. Lesson #3: learn to enjoy the process as well as the end result.
And those are the lessons I learned from my first mowing session of 2006. :-)
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