I've never been much of a risk taker in life.
Except when it comes to letting my car practically run out of gas before I finally stop at the gas station.
I'm better about keeping the tank full with my new SUV than I was with my last car.
But only because it tells me how many miles I have left in my tank and has a giant warning light that displays on the dashboard that annoys me.
My last car was more of a gamble. It didn't have fancy indicators like that.
The yellow light would come on and I would estimate that I could go about 50 more miles before I'd be in trouble.
Most of the time, this worked just fine.
Except if I got stuck in freeway traffic and was sitting at a standstill, staring at that yellow light praying that we would start moving and it would hold out until I could get to a gas station.
I've only run out of gas twice in my life.
The first time ever was on my birthday, I think about 8 or 9 years ago. I was exiting the freeway to actually go fill up. But I was too late. Stranded on the off ramp until a friend could come bring me gas.
The second time was more embarrassing. I was literally in the turn lane to go into Kwik Trip. At rush hour. Coming from work.
I had to get out of my car, cross traffic and come back with a gas can to fill it up. And the whole time a line of cars backed up behind me.
That was the last time I actually ran out of gas and it was about 5 years ago now.
But certainly not the last time I was running on empty.
I push my limits in life too. Wait until my warning lights start flashing to fuel up.
They've been flashing like crazy the last few weeks.
So I finally decided it was time to do something about it.
I gave myself some downtime this weekend to just relax and binge-watch a feel-good show on Netflix.
Scheduled a massage for Monday after work.
Forced myself to slow down and relax.
I'm no good at work or for my kids if I'm running on fumes. I get forgetful and easily frustrated and sometimes even a little reckless. Lose sight of who I am and my purpose in life.
Just like my car, I need fuel to run efficiently.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who lets their tank run nearly empty before filling up.
I've gotten my share of lectures about it too from the well-meaning men in my life who know so much more about cars than me.
I should really have taken their advice more over the years.
Funny story...
My son is driving my old car now. And he's been getting to know all the dials and lights and buttons on it.
He told me one day this past week that there's a display on the dash that you can set up to show how many miles you have left to go before you run out of gas.
What the what??
I drove that car for 10 years and never knew that!
That would have been helpful information for me to have.
I'm glad he has that now to help him stay on top of his fuel levels.
And I hope he pays attention to those warning signs.
I guess the moral of the story here is that those indicator lights and flashing warnings serve a purpose.
Both in our cars and in real life.
Let's do our best not to ignore them.
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