Inevitable, Not Detrimental.

The other night I had a dream I was putting a motor together. I was working on getting the timing set with the crankshaft and cam shaft, it was a small block Chevy motor.

I was doing this without being told what to do while my uncle walked by on occasion to check the progress. It was a good feeling.

Here’s the thing, at work, I don’t put much together. No, let me rephrase, I’m no where near ready to assemble a complete long block. I’ve always been the “tare down and inspect guy.” Flywheel resurfacing, brake drums and rotor rotating, manifold surfacing and head assembly. That’s basically all I’ve been doing and I still have a lot to learn even within those spectrums.

So, naturally, this dream got me thinking:

 

With motors, the margin for error is within thousands of inches. I mean, clearance for a piston ring for example: you have about four thousands of an inch (.004) (16.012-16.016 for instance) play before the ring goes bad. Or you install it and mess up the compression of that cylinder, thus throwing off the timing and balance of the motor…basically leading to wasted money on a rebuild and having to do it again.

But, even motors can be upgraded and tweaked for more horse power or better milage, performance, all of it. It all depends on the person, and the car.

“…My job, overall, is based on the finite aspects of what goes on in a car. I have to know, to the best of my ability, the most minuscule of details and aspects in order to know what went wrong in the big picture. Or to understand how to prevent something worse from happening…

“In order to see the big picture, I have to understand the often times overlooked details. I can’t know the issue without first thoroughly looking into the core…” 

 

As I said, we’ve got a small margin of error in a majority of what we do. Sometimes we don’t agree with what a customer wants or asks and if they don’t listen to our reason we do it for them. Either way, we learn something new in the process.

We may not like it at first but in the end, a middle ground is usually reached.

It wasn’t always like that but we’re a much more evolved unit. One of the things we take pride in is our ability to learn quickly and do what’s best for the customer, always.

We have to, otherwise, we end up hurting in both the long and short term.

 

Truth is: Change is inevitable, not detrimental.

In society (granted it is beginning to change), in our rush to rationalize life in our hastened living, we try to avoid change especially if they’re necessary. We tend to see the winds of change as a force set out to stop us from reaching our goals.

It’s because we’ve been conditioned not to accept ourselves, even in our biological and natural changes. Our core views are often buried in our fears of falsehoods.

We need to allow ourselves time in order to understand the core aspects of who we are. The minute details that make you you and me me. Find ways to expand our margin of error while also adapting to lessen the chance of fatal error from happening. Think less critical and be more cyclical.

Trust ourselves, in ways never thought possible so when change happens we can work with it instead of put energy into fighting against it.

-Gustavo Lomas