#98. Maintenance

The world today is more aware of human needs than ever. While I acknowledge certain groups in society still have a very hard time, but a sizeable portion now has all it needs, and more, to sustain livelihoods, and might I add, ensure flourishing future generations. The resources we have available are breaking all ceilings, so much so that modern solutions to problems are now more inclined towards convenience than necessity.

That being said, what I want to talk about today is now development, but maintenance, and that too focussing on our own maintenances.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

– Leonardo da Vinci

A predominant modern trend we see everywhere is “self-care”. I feel so sad when I feel that an entire facet of our lives can be encapsulated in a social media campaign, but I feel the “self-care” bandwagon is one that has had a lot of carriages hooked to it in the recent past.

The definition of self-care is different for different people. For a lot of us, self-care themes are relegated to being subsets of skin/hair care. Some of us take yet another route, and “pamper” themselves. This is accomplished by taking themselves out on dates, enjoying indulgent delicacies and going on shopping sprees. Then there is another subset of us who consider internal care as an important component of self-care. This is done by having indoor-sy days, spent meditating, reading and doing less stimulating activities.

I am not here to pick a right or a wrong way out of these, because to be honest, there are no right or wrong ones. At the end of the day, we are all unique individuals, and whatever works for us, well, works for us. However, what I want to bring attention to is a rather under-appreciated perspective when it comes to maintenance, and I would like to call upon it by means of a short story (based on real events).

From a very young age, I had a deep desire of owning a motorcycle. I guess it stemmed from looking at folks who had their own, and I could see the level of freedom they exercised when it comes to mobility. Every opportunity I got, I would express my desire to my loving parents, and the only hold up they had for a long time was my young age. However, no pun intended, it was only a matter of time.

Before I joined engineering, my father bought me the bike I didn’t even know I wanted when I embarked on my journey to buy one, A Bajaj Pulsar 200NS. This was back in 2012, when the motorcycle market in India was just entering the 200cc range. Man, I remember that day crystal clearly. I rode my bike right behind my family who were in our car, and the feeling when I throttled the bike was exactly as I had imagined for the longest time.

Later that year, I joined engineering, which happened to be 60 kilo meters away from my home, and as much as I would have liked to ride my bike for that distance, my parents did not feel it was the prudent choice. So, I used to carpool with others during the four years. All this while my red shiny bike was parked majestically outside our house, slowly collecting dust, experiencing rains and thunderstorms. I would get the opportunity to take it out for a spin, but those opportunities became fewer and farther between as the hustle of engineering picked up.

As I got closer to wrapping up my course and getting closer to employment, I regathered my passion for riding, and I became ultra excited at the prospect of being able to use my bike to go to my office. However, as luck would have it, I got placed in a city which was two hours of flying time away from my home. And hence, I had to wait more, and so did my bike. This lasted for another two years, and I finally had my homecoming.

By this time, I will be honest, I had almost forgotten about my love for riding, and that was largely due to my focus on my career and making something of myself, for which i was going to join my MBA college. At that time, I decided to take my bike with me for one year, during which I got to enjoy it for the first time, unperturbed by external circumstances.

However, this came after six years of the purchase, and while I had been sending the bike for regular “maintenances”, the driving experience had drastically changed, and not for the better. It was after three months of consistent usage that the driving started to feel like normal.

This experience has instilled a message in my head which has never left my conscious mind ever since.

Regular usage of our abilities is one of the most important forms of maintenance.

The old adage “use it or lose it” is applicable to all of us, and almost all facets of our lives. An important component of self-care should be regular use of our God-given abilities. It applies to physical, mental, spiritual and emotional.

Do I mean rest is not important? Not at all, but rest is a part of the process, and sometimes we forget that we rest so that we can optimally function. 🙂

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂