I am so fortunate to have the opportunities to have plenty of material to write a daily blog. I say this with a smile as we constantly have little and big unplanned obstacles come to us in our lives. This time for me it is multiple flat tires.
This morning I was leaving my house and after driving a few hundred feet I was hearing a beeping alarm sound. I checked my seat belt and I had that on. That was the alarm sound I recognized. I looked at the instrument panel and realized one of my tires had a tire pressure of 0. After jumping out of the car to check as if the machine was lying to me, I returned my car back to my garage. Yeah, it was flat.
There was another lesson in Abundance in store for me related to my flat tire. I didn’t get angry, however I did immediately start thinking about what I was going to do like anyone would. I thought, I have another vehicle. I have an amazing Jeep that has been super customized to be a rock crawler with all the features that has been for sale for a bit and hasn’t sold … side note: It’s for sale folks! Contact me for details 🙂 Anyway, this situation has come in handy already as my sister’s car needed some extended service and was out of her hands for over a week. She used my car and I drove the Jeep then. I kinda needed to drive this Jeep today as it is important to drive a car and not let it sit for the benefit of the vehicle. I was overwhelmed with Gratitude for the Abundance I have been given with 2 cars. Everything has a purpose and as much as I wanted to sell that Jeep, it has helped me. I so wanted to get the cash after it sold and replenish my savings. Thing is, that money I would have just been sitting in the bank. I don’t need that money now. Yeah, I could stop paying for insurance on the Jeep, but it is paid for and is here for me now. FYI Jeep buyers … I still wanna sell it, but I am so grateful for it now. It hasn’t sold for a reason as everything has reasons … even flat tires.
Funny side note, I immediately blamed the flat tire based on a short drive I took the night before where I had to go down a dirt road to take a friend home. I knew I picked up a nail there. It had to be that stupid dirt road. After calling a bunch of tire shops, I found the tire and proceeded to pump up the tire myself so I could drive it a short distance to get it checked and possibly buy that tire. Well, after getting some pressure in it when I hand pumped it, I was hit in the face with a burst of air. There was a split in the sidewall on a seam. These tires are half a year old. It is probably a manufacturer defect, not a nail from a dirt road. I even thought about giving some humorous guilt to my friend because of her dirt road she lives on and at least ask her for a ride home from the tire shop. Before I realized all this I knew that the joking guilt was a passive aggressive trait camouflaged in humor. This is a behavior I am working on. This is the old me .. the small self blaming someone that had no part in my flat. I volunteered to take her home less than a mile away. I have seen me use this stupid behavior of passive aggression cloaked in humor with another friend when I became frustrated with situations. It is wrong and not funny. In fact, it is gross and smelly and chops at the friendship especially when they have no blame. No one wants to deal with someone’s passive aggression. It just made me think I was being funny when I said that. Well, it’s not funny. No one is laughing. So, this is another lesson I am being taught from my flat tire.
So yesterday morning, another opportunity for growth happened. I was going for my morning bike ride and went to feel the tires on my bike to check the air pressure before my ride and realized my back tire was also at a tire pressure of 0, although I didn’t have the gentle and oddly pleasant beeping sound like the car emitted. There was a piece of wire sticking out of the tire.
Flat tires are my new nemesis it seems. There are so many ways to react to this. Again, I never got angry. I actually just felt inconvenienced. With the bike, I had to just repair it on the spot. I felt thankful to be honest that I had the time to do this based on not working this day. I also thought that it was a prime time to change my tire to a better tire I ordered weeks before when my front tire literally blew out. I was getting ready for a ride and when I took it outside and turned to lock the door, I heard an explosion … this loud POP. So odd. I looked down and the whole tire had a laceration in the top staring right at me. Never had I seen anything like that before. So, I ordered the most badass tire I knew of and went ahead and bought 2 while I was at it … 700×32 Continental Gatorskins. These beasts are virtually indestructible and fat! Anyway, as I went to change this tire out I decided to patch the tube that has a small hole I found. As I was in the middle of this tire change, I hearkened back to my previous post on Abundance and the Cat Treat Parfait. I literally thought about how I have a brand new tube to use, but I also have a tire patch and could save this tube for another occasion. Let me say that patching a tire is not wrong or bad or whatever. However, while working on it I was told by a voice from out of the blue, it just popped into my mind halfway through the repair that I am not operating in Abundance. I was reacting to the scarcity mentality I was raised with … pinching every penny and tightly gripping my money. Again, there is nothing wrong with being mindful with how you spend your money … UNLESS it is to an extreme that I am putting the Almighty Dollar on the highest altar to worship meaning I am out of balance with my view of the value of money. It is just ink on paper that we assign value to. Dammit, I still used the patched tire and finished the job. I didn’t listen to the advice and warning I was told. I had a great ride until I was close to home and was rounding a corner very fast and felt my back tire slip. I knew right then that the tire I patched was flat or going flat. I looked and yep … it was flat, however not completely. I didn’t listen. I didn’t follow through with what I was told and continued in the old ways and habits I am comfortable with. In the Bible, John 10:10 says, Jesus said, “I came that you may have Life and have it Abundantly”. I had an Abundant amount of tire innertubes.
Another lesson in this is when driving home in the Jeep today, I needed food and the thought popped into my head that there is a good salad place I was about to drive by and I should stop. I also realized that there was one right by the Costco I was planning on driving my car to for the flat repair. Well, the flat repair never occurred there because they could not get this tire. I would be starving by now as all my salad ingredients at home are old right now. I finally listened to that voice inside telling me to stop right then for a salad. Now most people would just think this is luck or random or chance that I happened to stop then and eat when I got home instead of going to Costco after I got home. You can be in your choice and believe that way. I know that I am honing my listening to my voice inside. It sided with Love .. self love. I wanted to eat then and what would 20 extra minutes matter with getting my car to Costco for a flat repair if I ate when I got home. Stopping and eating and not going to Costco because they didn’t have that tire after all tells me that I did something right! I listened to that voice and took care of myself without the fear that getting to the tire shop a little later would be a problem. Even though I dropped the ball with Abundance regarding the bike tire patch, I learned again to listen to my inner voice of Truth and choose Abundance. Love includes Abundance. Fear is what many of the other voice are born from. This is a way to distinguish between all those voices we hear. This is the advise I passed on to one of my favorite friends who said she doesn’t know what voice to listen to. Listen to the voice that is all about Love … self love, brotherly love and love with Gratitude to our ridiculously amazing Creator that we cannot even fathom.
We have SOOOOO many lessons from our trials and tribulations. Mine right now are related to Abundance, listening to that voice from God inside us or the messages from our Guides or Soul Family that instantly pop into our heads, refraining from passive aggressive comments covered by humor, Gratitude for all we are given and I am sure more will surface as my car tire situation is currently being worked on at the dealership.
What is going on with you? What are the obstacles you are finding life is giving you? Everyday there is something isn’t there? How do you react when something unexpected arrives? Can you view those as a gift … or a curse? Can you find the “silver lining” in that storm cloud? Are there blessings you can have and lessons you can learn and outcomes to work on? Can you hear your voice of Truth within and decipher it by knowing whether it is related to Love or Fear? Do you see your Abundance? Can you have Gratitude in times of trouble?
I plan to follow my Path of Truth and Light and Love. It’s not easy. I stumble and patch old tires when I have a perfect tire next to me. I vow to get back up and dust myself off when I stumble because mistakes have no judgment, but are how we learn if we listen and change how we do things that don’t have the outcomes we dream of.
UPDATE: Constantly confronted with Abundance
I ended up having my car towed to the dealership way across town per the roadside assistance. I thought the tire should be covered by a manufacturer warrantee based on the few miles on the tire and the 1cm slit in the seam of the sidewall. Unfortunately, not the case, but I had some of the cost covered. The roadside assistance was to cover a Lyft ride up to $100, but a glitch happened and I had to come out of pocket with reimbursement to happen. I was a touch frustrated, but again … it’s just money and I have it so … I am reminded to have an Abundance mentality. The neatest Abundance to come out of this ordeal is the chance to meet my Lyft driver Jean. We didn’t talk for half the trip. I didn’t want to have idle chatter for the sake of my entertainment. He did engage me though and immediately we went into a spiritual conversation. The funny thing is he went there first for a change. I didn’t hold back of course. This is a conscious soul brother that moved here to change the course of his life …….. more on this later. Meeting Jean may have been the biggest reason my tire blew, along with all the other lessons I am privileged to learn …. so Grateful.
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