How Gratitude Creates Perceived Luck — The Car Battery

When you find the luck, you invite it in.

“People don’t experience life. They experience life they focus on.”

-Tony Robbins

Layoffs suck.

Unemployment’s nice. But when it’s the equivalent of $8/hr, it’s hard not to feel like it doesn’t suck.

I eventually broke through the job hunt and landed a gig doing marketing for a local tailor shop. They weren’t able to match my survival rate so we agreed on slowly working up to that.

In the meantime, I battled student loans whose providers ended my economic hardship deferral a month earlier than agreed upon; cash advances that turned my paychecks into spare change; and the question:

“Do I spend money on groceries or do I spend money on the gas to get to the grocery store?”

I was barely living hand-to-mouth and at three figures below my bottom line.

Which meant I finished the year and jumped in the thick of the holiday season jaded, maybe even embarrassed by how cynical I became at the world.

So, as a goal (not a resolution) I gave myself the challenge of staying positive by writing a gratitude list for ten uninterrupted minutes a day.

And I found that after only a few days, not only was it easier for me to bounce back from negative vibes and moods, but I found myself getting luckier.

I’d like to share with you some examples of this luck. Starting with The Tale of The Car Battery.

Because I couldn’t afford to be on holiday for too long, my turnaround time for Christmas came and went way too quickly.

I found myself fumbling around for whatever spare change I had for overpriced food at the airport and tickets to the train to take me back home.

Turns out, I was a little luckier (already a great start) than my roommates. One spent 20 hours of Christmas Eve at the vet, and the other had either mono or strep throat.

To this day, we don’t know which one.

But I couldn’t help but think to myself:

What. The. Hell. I just got back! Can I have at least a night to breathe?!

Apparently not. Because the next morning on my way to work, my car was sputtering.

It never sputtered.

Then it rattled.

It never rattled.

Then it wouldn’t go.

It never wouldn’t go.

My car, affectionately named Sebastian or Sebbs after the character in She’s the Man, was very new. So this was a short, lit fuse into panic mode.

I texted my car-savvy friend to diagnose the problem. But then I had an idea.

If my car won’t start, maybe it’s… the battery?

I had my battery give out on me before and while it was completely dead last time, this felt oddly familiar.

So I knocked on my neighbor’s door, seeing that his Jeep was right next to Sebbs, and asked if he could jumpstart him.

He was out and opening his hood in record time.

Sweet guy. Kinda reminds me of Brendan Fraser.

We didn’t keep the clamps on for very long (a few seconds at best) and I made it down to my work’s parking lot.

That’s when my car-savvy friend responded to me.

He educated me on the fact that car batteries die every five years and the timeline fit for Sebbs.

Sadly, the battery would need to be replaced immediately.

Panic Mode again.

What was scarier to me than my car losing his battery was not having the money to replace it and fix him.

That’s when I remembered my family’s Christmas gift to me.

They had known about my financial troubles over the previous six or seven months and for Christmas gave me a coupon book.

The coupon book was made with contributions from everyone in the family (I think even the dog) but if I needed anything that related to that homemade coupon, all I had to do was ask.

Including anything car-related.

I texted my mom immediately, explained my situation, and the coupon money was Venmo’d almost as fast as it took for me to order a replacement battery.

The exact kind that my friend recommended was available at a Walmart five minutes away.

But, I had to stay smart.

Reviews.

And the first one that came up was one star.

The reviewer had said that there was something like a “core charge fee” immediately applied to any online orders for car parts which was “illegal”. Don’t quote me on that.

Their words not mine.

And the core charge fee was a VERY steep price for the battery. I double checked the Venmo.

It was enough to cover the charge with some change to spare.

So it became a no-brainer.

Even if I had to walk, I was going to pick this guy up before the store ran out.

One of my coworkers had overheard this dilemma, and offered to give me a ride to my car which I happily agreed to and even helped me jumpstart it again for a good ten minutes.

It was enough juice to get me to Walmart, while idling.

I know people’s stances on idling but I wasn’t changing Sebbs’s stance to D.o.A anytime soon.

The clerk came out with a gentle walk to compensate for the weight of the car part, placed it carefully onto my passenger seat and I drove home to get started on replacing it myself.

I figured I had replaced it on my last car, why would this be any different? I mean, they’re both Subaru’s.

I opened the hood and stood there.

For a good minute as the muscle memory took its time shaking the rust off.

I grabbed my tool bag from my bookshelf and adjusted the mouth of my wrench to get started.

That’s when a screw fell below the battery. And when I reached down, I had to deal with a hand wedged stuck between metal.

Once I carefully pulled my hand out, I went back into my house and grabbed some armature wire I used for a passion project.

The hope was to make a loop and catch the screw with it like I was doing some janky fishing.

The hope, however, was false.

Very…

Very…

FALSE.

That’s when I noticed a hole that showed the concrete underneath.

I knelt down and checked under Sebbs.

It was gonna be a tight fit, but I felt like I could sneak my way down there.

I slithered my way underneath the car and found the hole. It was large enough that I could fit my knuckles through, but my thumb became something of an anchor as I was limited to the length of my middle finger at best.

They turned into the legs of a spider as I felt for something that may feel loose and chrome.

Until finally, I felt something beginning to slide down. I used my many years of playing Operation to slowly pull in the screw.

A couple of clanks against the ground later, and I was relieved I didn’t have to deal with dirt and oil spots in my face any longer.

Everything else went according to plan. I tightened the battery to its proper place again, topped it off with the red positive cap and hopped in the car for a test drive.

And it didn’t start.

No I declared. No no no no no no no no nonono. We are not doing this shit right after Christmas!

But it turns out, that’s what my kind of car does during a battery replacement. It likes to test the waters apparently.

So we tried again.

And Sebbs woke up like nothing ever happened.

We took a victory lap (as much as we could with the gas that we had left) and then I parked and went straight to bed.

So what does this story have to do with gratitude?

Well it has to do with two things:

• Positivity lets in space to think.

&

• Like attracts like.

Knowing me, I wouldn’t’ve gotten this far or even replaced the battery successfully myself if I hadn’t been conditioning myself over time with gratitude lists.

I would’ve told myself that I needed to go a Subaru dealership (if I had the gas for it).

I would’ve told myself to save up money by going to work without a mode of transportation and that’s assuming I hadn’t caught whatever my roommate had and was healthy enough to work.

I would’ve told myself the core charge was too much and I had to wait and pray that I had enough juice in the old battery to get to Walmart and that Walmart still had the battery in stock (they had 3 left).

I wouldn’t have asked for help and told myself Of course this would happen to you. Well, figure it out so you don’t inconvenience others with your problems.

But instead, I began to think over the day:

Man, I’m really grateful that car batteries are easy to replace.

I’m grateful I KNOW how to replace a car battery.

I’m grateful I’m friends with a great guy who knows cars better than I ever could.

I’m grateful I had a coworker that’s kind enough to give me a ride.

I’m grateful I was able to redeem that coupon book.

I’m grateful I had enough money to buy a car battery even with the core charge fee.

I’m grateful Walmart was so close.

I’m grateful I’m small enough to fit underneath my car and grab the loose screw.

I’m grateful I have a car.

I’m grateful that I’m grateful.

I’m grateful that I got so lucky so many times.

I’m grateful my neighbor was home and parked right next to me.

This is just a tip of the iceberg of what I typed out that night in my gratitude list.

And if you want to try channeling the same kind of luck, give a gratitude list a shot. Like I said, all it really takes is ten minutes a day.

It is crazy worth it!

Thanks for sticking around!

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