Why I change my own oil

Read time: 3 min 52 sec

Whatup Reader!

So I’ve got about 45 minutes left in my current book, The Sunny Nihilist (woot woot, Audible what’s up) and the confirmation bias has inspired me to send ya’ll an email about how I spent my Saturday…cleaning.

Well, technically I spent part of the morning playing volleyball, but after that it was a day filled with doing things for Peggy (my Jeep), and cleaning the 2400 sq foot behemoth that is our apartment.

From about 1-6:30pm on Saturday I changed Peggy’s oil, hand washed her (the only “downside” of having a topless Jeep all year round), filled up her tires, vacuumed all 3 floors of our apartment, cleaned the cupboard doors, and cleaned the range hood (Lex takes the bathrooms and kitchen)…and not once did I wish that someone else would do those things for me.

I have jerry-rigged a system to get the very last drop of used oil out of Peggy, because it matters to me.

Shoutout to any of you reading this who are video or photo editors and spend hours color grading and changing the smallest of things that quite possibly no one but you will ever notice. I know you get it.

I’ve come to learn that I enjoy doing these things, or at a minimum I don’t hate doing any of these things, because taking care of my stuff matters to me.

Now, this is not to say that if you have someone do those things for you then taking care of your stuff doesn’t matter to you. (What has the internet world come to that I immediately feel the need to make justifying statements like that? Lawd.)

The statement, in and of itself, is the statement: Taking care of my stuff matters to me.

This is the reason I do so much of the stuff in my business, myself.

It’s the reason I’ll often opt to try and fix or do something myself (mounting a tv, changing the ceiling fan in Lex’s office, fixing a running toilet, striping the paint - that was clearly a product of miscommunication – off of the stained glass windows on our front doors) before calling someone. Don’t worry, I know my limitations ;-)

This has always been the case.

I’m the person who absolutely hates lending out my stuff because I’ve already decided that even the most well-intentioned folks won’t take care of it like I would, which means that if I do in fact lend something out it is only because I have made peace with the fact that it may never come back to me.

Perhaps this is a product of my upbringing and my mom instilling in me the value of hard work. Who knows. Either way, it’s my truth and I don’t feel the need to dissect it and unearth its origin.

All this to say, while vacuuming isn’t some sort of passion of mine, I do take pride in the fact that Lex and I can afford to live in such a dope spot, and as such I enjoy spending time on its upkeep.

It matters to me, so I lean in.

For those wondering, that sentence right there is the tie in to that book I’m listening to.

Ya’ll know my whole schtick is create and live YOUR best life. Whatever that looks like.

This is absolutely one of the reasons I have such a disdain for aggressive marketing and advertising tactic, because they look to convince me about what should matter or what is the most important. FOH. Autonomy is sexy. Share why it matters to you and allow me, the consumer, to make my own decision.

To that end, I often choose to share some of my content, like this email, simply because I want folks to know that they have options besides whatever the popular opinion is.

Once a month Lex and I do a big cleaning of the apartment, but I’m TOTALLY here for outsourcing cleaning if it ain’t your thing, or if you just don’t have the time and other things matter more to you.

We lean HARD into Instacart for getting our groceries. If you want to shop ‘til you drop, MOAR power to you.

If you want to use that gained time to work, awesome. If you want to use it to sit outside and do nothing, amazing.

Lean into what matters to you.

And then, if and when something else starts to matter more, you can your behavior.

Gonna leave you with a quote from the ever-brilliant Hank Green, because I’d be remiss if I didn’t address productivity in an email that references outsourcing:

“You will always struggle with not feeling productive until you accept that your own joy can be something you produce."

- Hank Green

Thanks for reading, Reader.

Maestro out.

Do the thing.