There's more to life than finding the perfect car, but finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop-off to off-road, and the car that holds groceries and hockey teams, or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, start your search at autotrader.ca, Canada's This is Optimal Living Daily, Episode 1810, all decked out by a landmassicot of free-to-pursu.com, and I'm just a molecule personal narrator reading to you with permission from the authors. I cover lots of topics like personal development or self-help, mindfulness, happiness, anything they think can help you live a more meaningful life in just a few minutes every day.
So with that, let's get right to it as we optimize your life. All decked out by a landmassicot of free-to-pursu.com. I'm all decked out, and it makes me feel so good. No, I'm not talking about what I'm wearing.
I'm talking about something that makes me feel even better because I do it once, and it looks good on me for a very long time. That something is a look of satisfaction for a job well done. A week or so ago, I power-washed our backyard deck and then proceeded to restain it. It was a labor of love because it took me hours at a point in time when I didn't feel like I could spare them all that much.
And as I worked, I felt the deck seemed so much bigger than I remembered. That said, I loved it. It felt good to do something for our home that both we and our guests would enjoy all summer long. It also made me appreciate Mr.
F2P's efforts in building the deck in the first place so many years ago. He put a ton of effort into that project, including adding some special touches to really make it our own. It's been a number of days since I finished the work and I still beam with pride every time I look at the finished product. Sure, it's not perfect, but I did it.
And that's what makes it special to me. In the state of outsourcing, we actively keep ourselves from experiencing the pride of a job well done for anything that has nothing to do with what we do for a living. And it's a shame because the pride that comes from doing something for ourselves is materially different from what we do professionally for others because it doesn't depend on anyone approving of it. And it's especially powerful when it's either something we've never done or something we don't do often.
When we step to the edge or beyond our comfort zone and take on a project that's not our thing or a project that stretches our abilities to a new level, the result isn't just the physical output of our efforts and the potential to save some money by doing ourselves. It's accompanying feelings of competence and gratitude for giving ourselves the opportunity to have at least tried it. To illustrate that last point, I recently had another DIY experience that didn't turn out so well, but that given the opportunity, I do again. My 2010 MacBook Pro laptop had been acting up because the RAM was just not keeping up with the upgrades to the operating system and the applications I'm trying to run on it now.
So I decided to upgrade the memory from 4GB to 8GB. Well, the $90 experiment didn't work. I had to put the old memory cards back into the laptop despite trying it twice. It's still not how it was, but I'm grateful to have tried to fix my problem because it's something I would never have attempted before, and I'm now likely to try hardware upgrades again in the future.
I've mentally filed the experience in the Nothing Venture Nothing Gains category of life experiences, because I'm now much less apprehensive when it comes to poking around in hardware and learning how it all works. Increasing our circle of competence in these ways can be transformative. It can lead us to ask more questions about more things, have less fear of the unknown, be more curious about what else we could try, look for opportunities to challenge ourselves, try and accept that failing is part of learning. Feel like kids again like we can do just about anything.
Appreciate the level of skill and competence others possess. In my opinion, there's something far worse than loss aversion, and that is mistake aversion. We're so worried about doing something or acting in a way that won't be perfect, though we keep ourselves from even trying anything that we're not accustomed to. We don't want to try anything that can wreck, damage, or alter an object despite what we could gain in the process.
The antagonist of objects has become more important than the experience we can derive from attempting to modify them or use them to the fullest of their potential. In part, due to the fact that we've been led to believe that perfect is more important than experienced, used, enjoyed, and or explored. There's a general misconception that if a thing isn't perfect when we buy it and as we own it, this automatically ruined and should be replaced or repaired by a professional. And marketers love to support these worries because their profits depend on us solving our problems with goods and services.
Not perfect or not the latest model, get a new one. Hogwash, trying stuff, taking stuff apart, building, maintaining, or fixing something we've never built, maintained or fixed before, or doing something new that makes us feel goofy, keeps us feeling alive, excited, and maybe a little nervous and adds to our life experience. And with the internet, there are so many how-to videos that we can learn to build or fix just about anything. So what if some of the things we try don't work out or don't stay perfect?
We're likely better for it, and if nothing else, the activity itself leaves us with a great story to share with others. In fact, the bigger the gamble, the better the story. Let's keep tapping into our inner MacGyver and keep trying our hand at the unknown. The more we try, the easier it gets.
You just listen to the post titled All Decked Out by Len Masikat of freetopursuit.com. One simple lab test covers over 100 biomarkers, and their app gives you a complete picture of your heart, liver, hormones, metabolism, even environmental toxins. Plus, it used to cost $499. Right now, it's just $199.
And head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership. And thank you to Len, I've sort of had the opposite problem, get me to restain a deck, and that probably won't turn out too good. But I use a really old Mac Mini for this setup that I'm on right now as I record this in the computer, just kept getting slower and slower. And after doing a little research and talking to Apple, they said, yeah, you could probably get the hard drive replaced, and that will fix it.
But through less, it'll be expensive. You might as well buy another computer at that point. The person at Apple said, I'll show you which hard drive it would be online to order. You could probably switch it out yourself.
And when they said that, I took it seriously, because I've opened up computers before, so if they think I have no experience, and then they say I could probably do it, then I probably really can. So I bought the hard drive online using exactly where they said and which model they said to buy. Followed a YouTube tutorial. And sure enough, it was actually an easy process, and the computer super fast after still running strong today.
This was a couple of years ago. I'd probably say $500 or more, and of course, like I mentioned, there's that sense of accomplishment that's priceless too. So just a little bonus story for you today, but I'll leave it there. Hope you're having a great day.
I'll be back tomorrow as usual. We're off to my life. Oh, wait.