Driving to and from work today kind of describes how the ride of my life has felt over the last few weeks.

It all started yesterday afternoon as I drove my truck home from an event after church.

In the lower gears, I noticed as I went to up-shift and down-shift, it felt like it took a little bit for the clutch to grab and for the gear change to finish.

This morning as I drove to work, the shifting hesitations expanded to some engine sputtering at the lower RPM’s after a gear jump.

Tonight, coming home from work, sputtering was added to the list of problems whenever I made a quick acceleration in any gear. By the time I neared my parents’ neighborhood where I was headed, the Check Engine blinked briefly, leading me to pullover and turn off the car for a moment. When I started driving it again, the solid red Check Engine light came on, and did not turn off.

As I drove the last quarter of a mile to my folk’s house, I held my breath, and with each gear change my anticipation of an engine stall or failed clutch engagement mounted, until, with relief, I finally got to my destination and happily turned the engine off.

I suspect that what is going with my truck has less to do with how I drive it (although I may be cited for being a bit hard on the clutch) and just moreso with how I’ve maintained it.

When I first got my truck, I kept great records and got it into the shop for service on time every time.

As the years passed, though, and personal or financial struggles jostled my life, I became less careful about my truck. I missed an oil change here, and then, later I missed major service work there. Eventually, while I tried to keep it maintained as best as I could, I just hoped it would continue to run fine forever, even though I was neglecting it more than I knew I ought to have. I’ve hoped somehow to get by. But now, today, I am on the brink of a major repair, and the neglect has probably caught up with me.

The sad thing is, I know this event is symbolic of how I often live, and probably have normally lived much of my life.

From my diet to the way I manage money, to how I pay attention and take care of my body, and even to a great extent, how I take care of my heart and soul, I do a poor job with the day in and day out stuff. It’s called self-care, I hear, and I do not do it well. And in the long run, that neglect becomes expensive.

Whenever you choose to not take care of the things in your life that need attention and upkeep and care- those things that need recurring and periodic maintenance that ensures they will work well for and with you when you need them to- they will inevitably fail you, and probably cost you a lot more to resurrect or restore or recover than if you had taken care of them decently all along. Like your body. And your finances. And your relationships. And your spirit.

I am a horrible maintenance guy. I don’t take care of the things that I should take care of as well as they need to be taken care of. It’s no surprise I am always kind of living on the edge of sustainability, and that I seem to just get by.

I haven’t quite figured out yet how to really take care of myself- or the things that I own. Maintenance requires diligence and effort, and I guess I have not realized that to care for yourself requires both diligence and effort. You have to know what really matters in your life. And you have to pay attention to it.

My body has not been feeling good for the last few weeks. Neither has my heart, nor has my mind, for that matter.

Lord, please help me to figure out how to become a maintenance guy, and quick. I am nervous about what I am steering myself into in the near and overcast future.

Young guy (or young girl)- if you read this: I hope you’ll take to heart this important conviction about living your life.

Take care of the small details in your life- day by day, week by week, year by year- that you need to to ensure that the important people and things you want in your life will stick around in your life. Like, your money. And your wife. And your kids. And your mortal coil. And your time.

And your truck.

Maintenance matters.

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Image Credit: Dave’s Bike Tools, by Bre Pettis (Flickr). Under Creative Common license.