Month: June 2022

You Truly Do Get What You Pay For, Or In This Case, What I Didn’t Pay For…

People always say you get what you pay for, especially when you try to cut corners in life, and due to my own ego, I’ve had to learn that lesson far too many times, including one just recently when the air conditioner in my vehicle began having a minor issue again.

About a year ago, my car’s AC was on the fritz. So, I took it into a local car repair shop I frequent often whenever I have any need of a repair. It’s a shop I trust, as I know the manager well and consider him a friend. All they needed to do was recharge it, essentially filing the refrigerant back up and placing dye in it as well for the sake of seeing if there were any pronounced leaks. Thankfully, there weren’t, and it was an inexpensive repair to get my car’s AC running smoothly again.

Zoom forward a year later to a very hot and humid afternoon about a week ago, where I noticed a slight increase in the AC’s temperature coming out of my car’s vents. I wondered if my AC needed another recharge as I was told by the car repair shop the year prior it probably had a very small leak. Rather than taking it back to them though to do another recharge, I opted for a cheaper alternative. So, I took it to a local auto parts store where a friend works. There, his boss was willing to have me buy some refrigerant ($60) that he’d put it my vehicle for me, which would roughly save me between $60 and $80 from what I would have been charged at the car repair shop. After he was done with the free service, I was left with an AC system blowing out nothing but hot air, as compared to the mostly cold air it had blowing prior to the refrigerant being added by him. I had no choice at that point but to take my car back to the local car repair shop.

For the next 16 hours or so, I’d spend most of that time beating myself up, not getting any real sleep, wondering if I had caused more of a problem in trying to save a buck. When I finally got the call late the next morning, I discovered all that had happened was that my AC system had been overcharged. In other words, the man who had done the quick fix for me had put too much refrigerant in my vehicle causing the system to shut completely done. Once the entire AC system had been evacuated and refilled, it was returned to its normal functioning.

While I once again had to learn this invaluable lesson that has repeated many times in my life, I did have some good news come out of it. Not only was I able to get my money back from the refrigerant I had bought at that parts store, but the local repair shop also didn’t charge me their AC diagnostic fee, because they knew exactly the source of the problem given the details I had told them. Yet, while the cost of this entire process didn’t set me back much, it did cause me an undue level of stress and anxiety.

How many times I’ve done things just like this in my life, always trying to save a dollar somewhere, is countless. Trying to cut those corners and make out more ahead than behind, only to cause myself more problems and usually more financial hardship in doing so, it’s never worth it. You truly do get what you pay for, or in this case, what I didn’t pay for, which I pray I’ll clearly remember the next time I’m presented with a potential solution to some problem I’m having, where it seems like it will cut a corner for me and save me a dollar, where I know it won’t…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Question For The Day

Today’s question is…

If you had to pick ONE thing and ONLY one thing that you were the MOST grateful for in your entire life thus far, what would you say it is?

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

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Grateful Heart Monday

It’s time for another Grateful Heart Monday, where the subject of today’s writing is always on a piece of gratitude from my life, which for today I wanted to follow up my writing from two days ago, the day where I turned the big 5-0, where I talked about the question I kept asking myself of, “Why I am here?”. I thought it’d appropriate to focus today on something connected to turning the big 5-0, and that’s all the major things I’m grateful for from the first five decades of my life. So here goes…and in no particular order of importance…

I’m grateful for all the lessons my parents taught me growing up that helped me to both learn what to do in life and not to do.

I’m grateful for getting my diploma from Arlington High School in Lagrange, NY, with an average of 94%, and a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, NY, with a GPA of 3.76.

I’m grateful to have become both a brother and founding father of Phi Kappa Psi New York Theta at RIT as well.

I’m grateful to have spent ten years in the computer industry doing everything from computer programming and software testing to quality assurance and quality control, all of which helped me to finally realize it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I’m grateful to have owned an 8-guest room bed and breakfast for seven years (1848 Island Manor House) on a remote island in Chincoteague, Virginia where I learned much about owning my own business and realized it too wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I’m grateful to have found sobriety and recovery from so many addictions, including alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex, love, codependency, and spending money.

I’m grateful to have found healing from the PTSD I endured from family alcoholism and mental health issues, from being bullied, from being molested, and from both my mother and father’s tragic and sudden deaths at their own hands.

I’m grateful to have greatly excelled in a good number of physical activities throughout my life prior to the chronic pain starting up in my life, including swimming, basketball, bowling, tennis, hiking, and biking.

I’m grateful to have travelled as much as I have both outside this country and within it, to Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada, and much of the contiguous United States.

I’m grateful to have loved and been loved by a number of partners and friends over many years to learn what loving another and being loved by another actually feels like.

I’m grateful to have lived as close as I have to major cities including New York City, Washington D.C., and Boston, where I got to explore city life as deeply as I did.

I’m grateful for the 15 hard years of volunteer work I’ve put into the addiction recovery field and all the people I’ve sponsored in the 12 Step program along the way.

I’m grateful to have had quite a few amazing spiritual experiences in my life that I can’t rationalize or explain that have led me to know there is something “out there”, “up there”, “around me”, and “within me”, that helps me to keep going in all the suffering I continue to go through with my health.

I’m grateful to the many who have prayed with me, over me, and for me throughout my life, especially in recent years with all the struggles I’ve faced.

I’m grateful to still have some family alive, including my sister and my three nephews, who love me dearly and who I love dearly as well.

I’m grateful to have survived many things that should have taken my life but never did, things that still baffle me to this day how I made it through them when so many in this world haven’t.

I’m grateful to still have all my senses present and my limbs still functioning enough to walk and drive.

I’m grateful for never having gone without food, water, or shelter at any point in my life.

I’m grateful to have been given the gift to write and speak motivationally, two things I never even knew I had until this past decade.

I’m grateful for my present partner, someone who has endured so much of my health issues and pain struggles yet remained by my side for over 10 years now, trusting and believing that I will get better, even when I’ve had a hard time believing it myself on many days.

And I’m grateful to God for having made all these things to be grateful for even possible.

So, on this Grateful Heart Monday, I choose to thank God all these things and all the things I didn’t list here yet are still upon my heart. After five decades of living, I truly have much to be thankful for, and know there will be more to be thankful for in the years to come. I pray that when my time finally comes, however many days, weeks, months, or years that is from now, that I leave this plane of existence still having a grateful heart, something I know is crucial to living a healthy spiritual life…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson