Drive it like it's rented

If you’ve been reading since a few weeks ago, I was involved in a small car accident, where a woman came back into me when I was driving over a carpark on the ground floor. The estimate for repairs is 10 days and the damage is around 5,000. Which makes it a low-speed shunt. His insurance will cover the cost of repairs. However, considering that I did not make any mistake, there is a lot of trouble.

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After sorting out the details for the assessment and booking of the insurance company, I then had to contact them to get the rental car approved. Where I was asked "Can you get on the bus?" - No, no, I can't. Not that I have anything against buses. But there is no way to get to where I needed to go by bus. Besides, I need to take my daughter to her day care. I explained and it was great. But they don’t cover a car “similar” to being damaged, which means I have it.

There is nothing wrong with a Toyota Igo or something like that. In fact, I got my own ownership for a few months where my wife needed our second car to drive her for a job. It’s just going to be a challenge to use it. Especially since it is going back to minus 20 degrees again and I can't find a place to heat the car's engine, so you know, most cars in Finland have plug-in engine warmers for cold weather. Otherwise many will not start. In my own car however it has a "websto", it is a heater that turns off the fuel in the car and can be turned on at certain times or using the key remote. Newcomers have an app for it.

So, even though it doesn’t sound like much of a big deal, training is coming for my delivery, which means I have to be in a certain place at a certain time. So if I want to suck it, I can't start the car in the morning. During empty-bone, I assume it has an engine warm in it. Which means I have to run a kind of long ass stretch cord on the driveway and keep it warm every morning. Not a big deal, but annoying.

They gave me the option to pay to upgrade to a larger car. But I don't want to pay a few hundred more dollars for it. While this is funny, I think the accident was my fault that I would be better off if I got any kind of car. But it wasn't my fault, it bothered me - at least a little bit.

I often try to focus on all the little things that bother me (and there are many) because then I get a chance to reduce the impact of their emotions on me by thinking about them. I did this when the accident first happened, although I only had to breathe for five seconds before getting out of the car.

By practicing this, I have found that the service is flawed and needs to be corrected, or that I have a tendency to get better results on what others might have. For example, when there is a bill that I don't think is wrong. I get annoyed then, but when I call to clear it I know that the person answering the phone has nothing to do directly with the error, it’s not their fault. They just need to help me sort it out and be much cleaner and faster on the same side of the table to work for a solution, rather than being opposed.

One thing I did notice, however, was that I was better at dealing with strangers than my wife. My brother and I argue a lot about stupid things and we are both stubborn which means we often end up on different sides of the table considering the grand scheme of our relationship to be absolutely trivial. Again it’s intriguing, because it really should be different. But I think that social customs and acquaintances play a huge role, where socially, acting like a prick is not forgiven. But with them we feel comfortable in it is almost normal. I can be a very tough person. But my brother has no push. But above all we have a pretty smooth relationship and I feel like I’m getting more intelligent as I get older and the little things aren’t letting me grow so much.

For a while I moved on to a life where I categorized things I could control, things I could influence, and things beyond my control. Although it worked, at first I realized that it was not sensitive enough to my needs. So I have to overlay more reference points, especially with the things I control and I can influence, because these are the areas where I can expend energy. What I often find is that even if something is within my control or sphere of influence, it does not mean that it is worth spending on my time, energy or resources.

With the car, for example, a colleague of mine worked at a car rental company and he said I could do something like this to upgrade and until I was willing to fight a bit. Although I can argue and fight. I am not willing to spend any effort or mental energy in this case, because I do not have a sufficient return on my personal investment, which means my potential has been better spent elsewhere.

I have seen the same thing happen when I help people, where some people are more "worthy" than I am, while others are not at all worthy. For example, the kind of work and balance that I added on the steem. Over the years I have attracted all sorts of supporters and opponents and again, I don't think there is anything to argue about, I want to reach a point where I am not willing to continue investing my time and energy, since the law of diminishing returns has come into force. And it all cost me.
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My guess is, things can be annoying and frustrating. Even if we can control or influence the results sometimes it is better to just leave it alone, let it slide, no one believes even though what they want must be wrong. Some annoying things and some people just aren’t worth trying. But it is better to take a breath and be happy with the people and the things that are there.

The thing I'm looking forward to with this little car is the handbrake. My car has an electronic handbrake and stability that limits scope. With plenty of snow all around and the roads freezing I can enjoy some pleasure again.