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Do you quest after material things? I have. In one of my initial posts here, on the mountain's accent, one of the things I thought would be an impressive goal was a sports car. Living in Florida now, the middle class midlife crisis vehicle seems to be a Corvette.
Cars are a fun way to think about what life might be like once you "make it." A goal, a motivation, an objective. I remember seeing a poster when I was young about motivation for higher education, and it was a picture of several exotics in a driveway.
Cars. Once you get there, you realize they're just stuff. The flash, the looks, the thrill. Easy to fake it, though, with a 700 credit score and a few thousand bucks down. I'm all for exotics, if you can pay cash for them.
I drove (past tense) a tricked out, ridiculous F350. Special edition, made more special with some crazy aftermarket upgrades. Turbo. Leather. Excess. No reason, other than the fact that it was the best. A few of you at the forum actually rode in it. I bought it at the peak of my income, before the economic crash and the loss of my business. At one point, I had payments of nearly a grand a month on that vehicle alone. It's been paid off for years, which is why I liked it now more than I liked it then. When I was paying $1k/mo for it, I thought it was a status sybmol. Only later when I was paying $0/mo for it did I really, really like it. When I didn't need it any more.
It's just a truck.
I walked out into my driveway yesterday morning, and it was gone. Gone in 60 Seconds gone. Gone as in Grand Theft Auto gone. In the United States, a car is stolen every 30 seconds on average. Blame the desensitization of society for a world in which this is somehow the norm.
It was pretty weird. I opened the garage door, walked out to the drive, and... nothing. Just a bright sunny morning shining down over where the truck used to be.
Initial confusion. Shock. Violation. Resolve. Hassle. Relief (from the insurance company). Remobilization, back on the road. Readjusting. Game plan. Mental inventory. Start moving again vs. being paralyzed in place. Keeping the family calm. Minimization. Perspective. Praying for the thief. Next steps. Car shopping. Reassessing personal security game plan.
Because... it's just stuff. Replaceable.
I didn't write this on the forum to collect a bunch of "sorry this happened" posts. I wrote it to recrystalize perspective. You want a lambo? MJ sold his in part because he didn't need it any more. It was just a thing... a thing that brought more attention than he even wanted. That truck? Once upon a time, my over inflated ego was wrapped up in having the most bad-a$$ F350 in the area.
The insurance company put me in a Chrysler 300. You know what? Might be nice to just fade to black (maybe black with black leather interior. I'm no saint.) Maybe a used one. Maybe I am past the point in life where I need the vehicle to show you who I am. Maybe the fact that this truck no longer sits in my driveway means I can be a little less pretentious. Maybe the pain in the a$$ factor of the last few days is an additional wakeup call to eliminate the stuff that once lusted for.
Maybe earlier I was focused on the wrong things, when I focused on gathering the most stuff. Maybe I learn the best lessons in life because I require things to be literally taken from me in order for me to reprioritize. Maybe I should be thanking the thief as I pray for him.
Cars are a fun way to think about what life might be like once you "make it." A goal, a motivation, an objective. I remember seeing a poster when I was young about motivation for higher education, and it was a picture of several exotics in a driveway.
Cars. Once you get there, you realize they're just stuff. The flash, the looks, the thrill. Easy to fake it, though, with a 700 credit score and a few thousand bucks down. I'm all for exotics, if you can pay cash for them.
I drove (past tense) a tricked out, ridiculous F350. Special edition, made more special with some crazy aftermarket upgrades. Turbo. Leather. Excess. No reason, other than the fact that it was the best. A few of you at the forum actually rode in it. I bought it at the peak of my income, before the economic crash and the loss of my business. At one point, I had payments of nearly a grand a month on that vehicle alone. It's been paid off for years, which is why I liked it now more than I liked it then. When I was paying $1k/mo for it, I thought it was a status sybmol. Only later when I was paying $0/mo for it did I really, really like it. When I didn't need it any more.
It's just a truck.
I walked out into my driveway yesterday morning, and it was gone. Gone in 60 Seconds gone. Gone as in Grand Theft Auto gone. In the United States, a car is stolen every 30 seconds on average. Blame the desensitization of society for a world in which this is somehow the norm.
It was pretty weird. I opened the garage door, walked out to the drive, and... nothing. Just a bright sunny morning shining down over where the truck used to be.
Initial confusion. Shock. Violation. Resolve. Hassle. Relief (from the insurance company). Remobilization, back on the road. Readjusting. Game plan. Mental inventory. Start moving again vs. being paralyzed in place. Keeping the family calm. Minimization. Perspective. Praying for the thief. Next steps. Car shopping. Reassessing personal security game plan.
Because... it's just stuff. Replaceable.
I didn't write this on the forum to collect a bunch of "sorry this happened" posts. I wrote it to recrystalize perspective. You want a lambo? MJ sold his in part because he didn't need it any more. It was just a thing... a thing that brought more attention than he even wanted. That truck? Once upon a time, my over inflated ego was wrapped up in having the most bad-a$$ F350 in the area.
The insurance company put me in a Chrysler 300. You know what? Might be nice to just fade to black (maybe black with black leather interior. I'm no saint.) Maybe a used one. Maybe I am past the point in life where I need the vehicle to show you who I am. Maybe the fact that this truck no longer sits in my driveway means I can be a little less pretentious. Maybe the pain in the a$$ factor of the last few days is an additional wakeup call to eliminate the stuff that once lusted for.
Maybe earlier I was focused on the wrong things, when I focused on gathering the most stuff. Maybe I learn the best lessons in life because I require things to be literally taken from me in order for me to reprioritize. Maybe I should be thanking the thief as I pray for him.
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