Car troubles--not a reason to panic

Talk about a frustrating week.

On Sunday I went to start my car, but all I heard were a series of clicks. The next day I was flying out of town for business, so I had to arrange a ride to the airport and a tow truck to take the car to the repair shop. The tow truck dropped off the car across the street from the repair shop; I had to call back and have it towed across the street for $45. Turns out it was the battery. A couple hundred dollars later, I discovered when I returned home that my muffler was hanging low—my muffler brackets had snapped. What I thought might be a quick weld repair turned into a much more expensive job.

Argh.

Throughout the entire experience, I remained relatively calm. Before Recovery, I would have been in a full-blown panic. With my Recovery training, however, I’ve become much more of a realist. Cars break down. Multiple things can go wrong. These sort of problems are average for an older vehicle.

And among all of the things that can go wrong in daily life, this is certainly a triviality—an expensive triviality to be sure, but not something to risk my mental health.

Among the tools Recovery teaches its members is the mantra, “Expect frustrations every five minutes and you won’t be disappointed.” To someone not trained in Recovery language, this may seem pessimistic. Yet when experiencing a series of unfortunate events, such thoughts help keep me grounded and in control of my emotions.