It’s late, and I’m tired, so I’ll try to keep this one shorter.
About a week ago, one out of the four blinker lights on my car went out. Great. Not horrible car trouble, but still annoying. People behind me wouldn’t know when I was turning left, and there was that awful rapid clicking signal yelling “Something’s wrong!! I don’t have my partner anymore!!” whenever I put it on.
As I continued driving, the signal came back on. Then it went off again. Then on again. This was getting annoying. Was my light dead or not?
Eventually, it went dead and stayed dead. I drove over to Autozone to get either a new light or a new fuse or whatever electronic bit controlled the lights, because I didn’t really think the light was dead.
It wasn’t the light. It also wasn’t the electronics. I was stumped, the Autozone guy was stumped, and thought maybe something in the electronics leading to the light was wrong. He sent me away with a list of local shops that might be able to help.
That was yesterday. Today I went to a Christmas party with some friends. After we said goodnight, I decided to check the light one more time. Still broken.
A thought popped into my head. A memory from years ago, listening to NPR’s Car Talk on a Saturday morning driving somewhere with my Dad.
The man called in to the show with a story of an odd problem that he solved by literally hitting his engine with a wrench. One of the hosts said ‘yeah, sometimes problems can be fixed like that.’
I knew there was practically no way this was going to work, but I was a little frustrated, and there was a chance. So I hit the light. It started blinking.
As I drove home, I thought about how random it was that that that particular memory that had no right to still be in my head would pop up right when it could be useful. I realized that it’s really the reason why we learn almost anything. At some point, it could solve a problem for us.
So remember everything you can. Notice things that are odd, or out of place. You never know when they might pop into your head and make themselves useful.
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