Keeping Your Cool

“It’s not usually a big issue, but a combination of a couple of small things that cause a problem.”  - Gary Christensen

Keeping Your Cool

One bead of moisture began to be pulled by gravity toward the ground.  I felt it gather and begin its slide down the side of my face.

“I guess I am a little warm.”  I thought with a sense of uncertainty.

Such uncertainty from discomfort was unusual, because it was about nine-thirty in the evening.  The sun was hiding behind the Stansbury Mountains and my family room should have been filled with cool, conditioned air.  I got up to look at the thermostat, flipped on a light and stared at the temperature, eighty-one degrees!  Forced air was coming from the vents, but it wasn’t cool, so I turned it off and contemplated a costly problem.  Luckily, I knew who to call first thing in the morning.

My friend Gary Christensen is a heating and air conditioning expert.  I touched his number and a few minutes later his van was pulling into my drive.  He had my compressor open, hooked up to his diagnostic tools, cleaned and operating perfectly before eight-thirty in that morning.

“It’s running well now!” he said.

“It’s past its expected life span, so I thought I’d need a new one!”  I replied.

“No.  It’s running well.  Here’s the thing.  It’s not usually a big issue, but a combination of a couple of small things that cause a problem.”  Gary taught as we listened to the whirring of the compressor’s heat exhaust fan.  “If you pay attention to three small details everything will run well most of the time.” 

Here is Gary’s advice about how to keep your house and yourself cool.  Keep your internal filters clean.  Make sure to keep external clutter away.  Maintain good air flow from the outside in.

Gary says, “You don’t need to spend a lot of money on expensive filters.  Just buy good quality that doesn’t restrict the air flow too much.”  Life is a lot more fun when you and I don’t decide to make it too make it more restrictive than it needs to be.  My friend Dianne Merrill says, “Try to say yes as much as possible!  Nobody likes to hear no all the time!”  So, say yes as much as possible.

Say yes, when it comes to getting rid of clutter in life.  Ask, will adding this cause me to stop paying attention to what is really important to me?  Just because you and I like to say yes, doesn’t mean we don’t know how to say no when needed.  Maintaining space to “breathe” is critical to happiness.

Relationships are the breath of life!  Gary would call this, maintaining good air flow from the outside in.  Surrounding yourself with good people willing to reciprocate a fulfilling connection will always enhance quality of living.

My friend Gary Christensen knows all about heating & air conditioning and he’s also an expert when it comes to enhancing the quality of life.  I touched his number and a few minutes later he had opened my heart, hooked it up to his diagnostic tools, and taught me how to keep it cool before eight-thirty on that very morning.

A Licensed Stranger

A stranger chasing me down in the world’s busiest airport

A Licensed Stranger

There were hustling people everywhere.  They were running from gate to gate, from hallway to train, up escalators and down.  The Atlanta’s Hartsfield is the busiest airport in the world.  On this day, there was no doubt about this, in my mind, and I began my trek through it after disembarking from the gate where I deplaned.  That’s when I checked the time to see how hard I had to swim to join the other salmon surging up stream.

Once in the stream, swimming along, I felt a sense of calm.  It wasn’t that it was less crowded.  It wasn’t.  Perhaps it was because going the with the flow is always easier than working to merge, and most certainly easier than trying to swim against the flow of seemingly spawning fish.  I swam down the escalator rapids and then entered the fish trap in the form of a train to transfer to a terminal, five stops away.  Swoosh, the doors closed and I was off.  Then the door opened again and I swam up another escalator rapids to join different stream.

That’s when things changed!  I had just risen to the top of the escalator and had walked, perhaps thirty feet when I heard someone trying to get my attention.  It was a little startling!  Everyone else was ignoring me as they just swam along.

“Excuse me.” The stranger said.  “Is this yours?”

I turned to look.  He, the stranger, was gasping while reaching toward me, with my driver’s license in his hand!  It had apparently fallen from my pocket as I removed my phone to check the twenty-eight messages that had accumulated during my air time.

“Thank you!” I replied, with heartfelt thanks.

He smiled and swam back into the stream, likely to never been seen by my eyes again.  I turned and swam the other way with the stream feeling somewhat warmer and much more inviting!

There were still hustling people everywhere.  They were still running from gate to gate, from hallway to train, up escalators and down.  The Atlanta’s Hartsfield was still the busiest airport in the world.  On this day, there was still no doubt in my mind about this as I continued my trek, after receiving my lost driver’s license from a complete stranger, whose largely unnoticed kindness gave me relief and warmed me to the core!

Path of the Locksmith

A lost key

Path of the Locksmith

Neither owner of a particular house in Anderson Ranch had a key and time was short.  It was a Saturday morning and I needed a locksmith so, I got to work on the phone and after several calls located one who could meet me there.  I was expecting a big van to pull into the driveway at our appointed time.  Instead, a small gray sedan rolled up and the driver gave me a friendly wave, hello.  Then, he picked up his large case of tools and we walked to the front door together.

Upon our arrival, he opened his bag and rooted around.  He contemplated his different options and decided to check the status of the two locks on the door by slipping an inflatable tool between the jamb and the door.  I smiled a little as be proceeded, because the tool looked very similar to a blood pressure sleeve and watched as he turned a small valve and then used the air bulb to press air into the carefully positioned sleeve.  Swoosh. Swoosh. Hiss.  The sleeve filled with air and the space between the lock and the jamb expanded.  In a just a few moments, he knew that the deadbolt was not engaged and that he needed only to deal with releasing the lock on the doorknob.  Knowing exactly how to gather information about what needed to be done and where to focus his efforts made his success come swiftly and easily. 

I learned a lot from his success and thought about other areas of life that could use the particular skills of a locksmith.  We all face unexpected challenges.  Sometimes, just as we begin to believe we’ve entered smooth, calm waters and nothing but blue sky and gentle breezes will last forever, the most unexpected, unimaginable storm enters our lives.  I can’t explain why this occurs, but I have encountered it again and again.  My friend Kyle Christensen calls it, “swimming against the current.”

When he finds himself in this situation he asks one important question.  “What is it that I need to learn from this?”  Then he follows the “Path of the Locksmith.”  He gathers his tools and reviews them.  He analyzes the circumstances in front of him and, he takes focused action to unlock the challenging mystery.  Finally, he enjoys living in the smooth, calm waters of his life with nothing but blue sky and gentle breezes.  Such times of peace are the reward for learning needed, important lessons.  They allow us to gather strength for whatever unknown lessons will next descend.

I was unknowing and wasn’t expecting to learn such a valuable lesson from the driver of a small gray sedan, a locksmith, on one informative, early Saturday afternoon.  And, he taught me that the Path followed by a Locksmith is a key to opening more than just doors.  It is a key we can all use to learn the answers to the lessons life asks every one of us to learn.