It's Over

If you haven’t heard, we caved and didn’t last for the entire 12 months as a one car family as planned.  Are we failures?  Losers?  Two-car dorks?  Undisciplined?  I guess to some extent, yes, yes, yes and yes.  You risk being called all of these when you put a goal out there in cyberspace. (does anyone even use that term anymore?)  Our goal was 12 months and we made it 10 months.  Not bad, but that’s like finishing 21.83 miles of a 26.2 mile marathon.  DNF.  We did not finish. 

But we are OK with that.  We learned a lot about ourselves and our culture in the process.  We also hopefully taught some valuable lessons to our children about needs vs. wants.  Hopefully, they will remember this crazy 10 month period when their goofy parents decided to embark on a nowhere near mythic adventure of being a one car family. 

I must admit that the one car thing wasn’t as challenging or exciting as I thought it was going to be.   No breakdowns that left us stranded, no accidents that totaled the only transportation that we had, only a few times of conflicting schedules – which were quickly and easily dealt with.   It was actually kind of boring!!!   

I can’t go any further without thanking my beautiful wife and her willingness to sacrifice the convenience of having a vehicle at her command when she wanted to go somewhere.  She is an incredible soul and I don’t know of many who would be willing to do what she’s done over the last 10 months.  God blessed me undeservedly when He put us together.  Thanks Krys.

I would also like to thank our incredible friends who gave us rides when we needed them and also my Mom & Dad who would let Krys borrow their car on occasion.  You guys rock!!

Before I close, I’d like to share one of the things that I learned during this process.  It’s that we tend to over-plan and over-compensate for any potential problems & perceived risks.  Most of the things we worry about never happen.  Jesus says in Matthew 6:34  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.   This is one lesson that I found to be incredibly useful and true over the last 10 months.  We worry about things and try to take care of them on our own by planning with Plan B, Plan C,  Plan D, and The Doomsday Scenario.  What if the energy that we used planning for tomorrow and minimizing risks was used to live in the moment?  What would your world look like if you viewed today with hope and optimism, instead of worrying about tomorrow in fear?  I don’t have it down yet and I may never, but I think that our little experiment has helped me to grasp this truth more tightly.