I just had my first $50 fill up at the pump. $54.40 to be exact. Standing there, waiting for my receipt to print, I couldn’t help but think that this moment sums up how everything is going for me and so many others at this moment.
I never expected to pay $50 for a tank of gas. I did everything to avoid it short of buying an electric vehicle. I drive a hybrid and can normally expect around 40 miles to the gallon. My vehicle doesn’t have the biggest gas tank. Most importantly, normally I fill up every week or at the quarter tank mark at worst. $50 for fuel on a routine fill-up shouldn’t happen, but it did.
It is easy to start and end by blaming gas prices. $3.79 was the price at the time of filling up. If I am honest, I was expecting above $4 per gallon 2 weeks ago. Keeping my weekly fuel bill low is about so much more than that, though, and a lot of this is on me.
When I finally pulled into the station, the warning read “5 miles to empty.” I had meant to get gas before I headed home, before I left home, and numerous other times for the last week or so. If I had filled up last week, I could have saved 25 cents per gallon, and I would have also only had to buy half a tank’s worth or so. That represents real and felt costs. However, things have been particularly stressful for the last few weeks, and the toll that stress has taken shows up in forgetfulness, particularly of the little things. Being at a half tank or an extra $5 at the pump hardly constitutes an emergency when there are a lot of big, stressful things on your calendar, in your inbox, and weighing on your mind. All that doesn’t make me feel any better about how much that transaction cost. I should have walked away, like normal, with a receipt for $30, but I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even guess what the total amount would be as I pulled in, a normal routine of mine (shoutout to the “know the costs” chapter in my latest book). No, I was genuinely taken aback.
That is when the weight of the last few weeks all hit. The failure to land the job I was counting on, tax season reminding me that this was not my best year from an income standpoint, the random extra expenses that had to be covered, and then there is the looming threat of a rapidly declining economy in the midst of a war with huge ramifications at every level of civic life. All this came wrapped up and summarized in a fuel-up nearly twice the size of normal.
I have a hunch that I am not the only one feeling this way. When the price of groceries went up, we had more options. We could cut back some, pick the cheaper options, and pivot our going out. Gas is a little different. Most of us have to drive. To get to work, school, go to the store, see family, etc., all take fuel. We can reduce miles, but can we really? Not moving carries a different kind of cost. Our fuel mileage will be the same, because we aren’t going to shift to EVs to “save money.” Even if we did, we know that the price of gas is just the first thing that skyrockets in price. When the price of gas goes up, so does the price of literally everything. Look at all the consumer sentiment poles, the numbers are in, and they all show that people are not feeling good about where things are heading.
This is all the financial impulse and the fear of affordability. The other fear, running in tandem, is bigger than just our financial well-being; it’s the fear that all the security we thought we had is now showing cracks in the armor. There are physical wars happening, and no one believes that they are going well, despite what we are being told. A threat to physical safety feels like it is getting closer. Our entire political system has been in chaos for a while, and it feels like we are getting to the crescendo. The economy and looming AI threats have left the job market in the worst place in decades, while unemployment numbers are skewed, and inflation on the necessities continues.
These feelings of unease, these fears of what is coming, bring on fatigue in everyone, for all sorts of different reasons. That fatigue has us running on empty. It shifts our focus to the problem at hand and tunes out everything else, especially the good.
Everyone has likely experienced the anxiety that happens when you are close to an empty gas tank, when the light comes on, and you have somewhere to be. “25 miles to empty” becomes the most important equation of the day to solve. You immediately start thinking, how many miles are left in your trip, where is the next gas station, do I have time to stop, what is my fuel economy now, and arguing that those miles to empty are ticking much faster than normal. If you are cutting it close, you will likely have your fuel range and economy up on the dash, and if you are like me, you are laying off the accelerator every chance you get. Your eyes spend as much time on your gauges as on the road. You lose focus on everything else because the outcome of being stuck on the side of the road becomes imminent.
Many of us live like this from time to time, and probably more of us now. We are looking to see when the money will run out, when the energy will run out, and if there is any way to avoid the negative outcome we see in our imminent future, if an opportunity doesn’t present itself fast. The more conscientious or anxious of us will replay all the things we did to subject ourselves to this stress and kick ourselves for not taking action. All this, while we still keep moving.
We are still passing scenery and beautiful weather. A good conversation may be possible with someone in the passenger seat. Our favorite song may still come on the radio. We still have to pay attention to the road. All this continues to happen while our last few drops of petrol burn. So yes, there is something that needs your immediate attention, but does it have to let everything else fade into obscurity?
We, and I wholeheartedly include myself in this “we,” let the stresses of life distract us from mitigating problems from happening. Then we let the solutions to these problems we created detract from the things that we should be paying attention to that make our lives more than the issues around us. They say, “An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure,” but we forget the maintenance part when life gets crazy, because it always will.
It starts with “cleaning your room before you try to fix the world,” but it is so much more than that. It is more of a “keep a clean room, so you can show up in the world every day.” It’s the hack of making your bed, because it just improves how you move through life. The real peace that comes in contentment begins in the maintenance of life. That maintenance adds meaning to your movements, honors where you have been, and prepares you for where you are going. Maintaining things creates a deeper sense of owning them and increases the pleasure you get from using them. Same with people. The time you spend working on relationships deepens them.
When you neglect maintenance, breakdown is assured. Any mechanic can tell you that scheduled maintenance is always cheaper than a breakdown. As people, we are prone to breaking down when not cared for properly. We are breaking down, most of us. We are neglecting maintenance and running harder than ever on cheap fuel.
One of my moments of realization that I have neglected maintenance was a $50 fill up, but once you see these things, they are hard not to see the broader effects. Life is a series of tradeoffs, and our job is to make sure the trades we are making work in our favor. We are not self-repairing, nor are we robots that can work non-stop. Taking time to rest, repair, prepare, and maintain is essential to thriving.
I hope this serves as a reminder to take care of yourself today and look after your future self. The real secrets to a good life are in the maintenance, so you can trust your vehicles to take you anywhere you want to go.
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