I’ve been in a funk lately.
Not depressed or anything like that, just a funk - for lack of a better description. It was triggered in early July while on vacation due to a couple unfortunate events and it seems to be constantly fed by political overload, election exhaustion, being on a stricter budget since retirement, concern for friends and family with health issues, my own upcoming surgery, and perhaps some personal floundering about exactly where I fit into the whole scheme of things since retirement.
Don’t get me wrong - I am enjoying the freedom of retirement immensely, but there is some truth to the feeling of irrelevance once the responsibilities of employment are gone.
I’ve tried hard to shake it off.
Sara and I have a regular morning routine of taking a walk and reading and praying together. We are diligent about counting and recounting our blessings and thanking the Lord for all He has done. I make it a point to be conscious of my attitude and try to choose a a good one.
(Sometimes I’m even successful!)
Generally playing my guitar and singing is quite therapeutic. At this time however, while I enjoy it, it’s adding to my lethargy due to the fact that I’m facing several months of recovery and therapy before I can commit to taking on a gig or participating in any musical endeavors.
To complicate it even more, in the last couple weeks my new CNC machine began having some issues and our microwave broke.
It gets even better.
Go ahead - call me stupid now and get it over with.
For a while I’ve been thinking I need a lawn tractor.
Multiple reasons.
I could probably afford a new one but in effort to be frugal, I found an old one on Facebook Marketplace, pulled the trigger adding yet one more item to the list of things needing repair.
I honestly didn’t get overwhelmed by any of it, but it all did kind of “feed the funk feeling.”
Yes - there is a point to all this.
Stay with me.
Last Monday I had received new parts for my CNC and began replacing the items that we suspected were faulty. Mid afternoon I broke off and went to look at the lawn tractor which I ultimately purchased. Brought home the tractor which of course wasn’t running and parked it.
Tuesday I finished the repairs on the CNC. I ran it through a basic operation a couple times and it worked flawlessly.
Wednesday I gathered everything I needed to start working on the tractor. By mid afternoon after having taken the carburetor off about a dozen times and cleaning it I realized there was a small deteriorated “O” ring. Called around and found a shop that was familiar with the carburetor and happened to have the part.
Took the carb with me and showed it to “Billy” the owner of the establishment. He quickly looked it over, showed me yet another ring that was bad, got me the parts and told me how to fix it.
About a half hour later the old tractor was purring like a kitten!
I was elated to say the least.
(Thanks Billy!)
A little aside here -
While I’ve generally been able to successfully “pull a wrench” now and then, it’s definitely not my forte’ nor do I enjoy it. This time however I didn’t really mind it. I attribute this to the fact that every time prior, I was up against a deadline. If I couldn’t get done in the allotted time, the project would have to be put on hold, incomplete, until I could get another day off of work.
That always frustrates the heck out of me! This time - for the first time ever, it didn’t really matter if I got done. I could resume the next day. Wow! Very cool!
Thursday I cleaned up the tractor and tried it out a bit. Worked great! I decided to mow the lawn with it on Friday. Went even better!
Saturday the new control board for the microwave arrived - almost a week ahead of schedule.
With a certain amount of trepidation I tore into that project and about a half hour later the microwave was working great!
Here’s the point - Saturday afternoon it suddenly dawned on me that my Funk had disappeared. I’m sure that having successfully completed all three projects had something to do with it, but I suspect more than anything else it was simply staying motivated, regardless of how I felt. Moving ahead even when I didn’t really feel like it.
Maybe the verses in Ecclesiastes and Colossians that refer to “doing everything with our might” and “whatever we do in word or deed” to give thanks in the “Name of the Lord Jesus” are indicative of this principle.
Keep going - and be thankful that you can!
At any rate it apparently worked for me!
What do you do that works for you? How do you get out of a Funk?
I’d enjoy hearing! Leave me a comment!
