Mind versus Filter

'Technology' is certainly not the exclusive domain of computers and IT.  Here is a tale of my Saturday morning...


I headed out to my folks place to do some maintenance whilst they are away for a while.  Time to check the pool, mow the lawn and water some plants.  Only, I had been sick for the previous few days, and had a shockingly bad sleep the night before, so was not in the most enlightened mood to be doing other family members house chores.

I arrive, and the pool is green.  Mold, slime, rotting dead toads, crap everywhere.  I check the filter - and it is broken.

Frustrated, I flick a bunch of switches, nothing.  Getting more agitated, I check the cables, pushing leaves and sticks out of the way.  My arms are flailing, and I am getting hot and annoyed.  I really dont want to be doing this right now - the wind is blowing around me and my hair is flying in my face.

"I'm going to be stuck here all day now.  Dad is going to be pissed.  I am feeling like death.  This filter is a piece of crap."

Nothing that I try works, so I give up, go inside and email my Dad with the news to get his opinion on what to do.  Deflated, I get ready to leave.

After a few minutes though, I calm down and do some thinking.  A realisation of stinking hypocrisy dawns on me - I have just fallen into the mind-trap of frustration that can so easily block positive thought and conducive problem solving.  In fact, I was in this mind set even before I arrived at my folks house, using tiredness and illness as my cloak, which really gave me no chance of ever having a good interaction with this troublesome filter.  I also realise that if I was trying to fix this filter as part of my work, I would have approached it very differently, with much more quality and presence, regardless of tiredness or not feeling well.

So, I reset my expectations and decide to give it another go.  I calmly step outside and move towards the filter.  It sits there, intent on fooling me, willing to send me home without success.  But I have a weapon.  My level-headedness shall prevail.

The main street empties, a tumbleweed rolls across our path.  I take another step.  The wind blows the nearby leaves into a flutter.

I arrive at the filter, and calmly run through a process of elimination.  After 2 minutes, I isolate a $5 powerboard as being broken, run the filter cable directly into the power socket, and up she springs.

Fixed.  I leave the house with the filter issue resolved and the green pool on its way back to blue health.

Later it dawned on my that even if I had not found the issue (i.e, if the issue was something I could not solve at that time for example a blow motor), I still would have felt better after the second round of problem solving, knowing that I had approached it in the right way and had moved to negate my earlier frustrated response.  The anger and frustration blocked my abilities to think clearly, but with some awareness and resolve, I was able to change my response and work through the tiredness/sickness/hotness back to a place where I was much more likely to have a positive interaction.