Autonomous Attributions

My occupation has resorted to self-taught mechanics. Welding has not taken place since my first post about it. Unfortunately, my resources have withdrawn from providing me with the tools and knowledge to participate in the occupation of welding. I took the initiative to start doing simple mechanical tasks I felt capable of completing myself. Two weeks ago, I went in for a service on my vehicle. The dealership wanted to charge me $550.00 for a 30,000-mile service. My vehicle had 50,000 miles. I told them the reason I had not had a service yet was because they were three months out and I came at the soonest available time they had that fit my schedule. I accepted some of their services, but not all. They told me I needed a new engine and cabin air filter, but I told them I could do that myself. I already had the filters purchased from a previous service because I knew the cost would be cheaper if I did it myself.

I had a general idea of where the filters were located but wanted to make sure that I was doing it correctly, so I didn’t have any issues. I looked up positioning, securement, and air flow direction. I had help with this when I ended up pulling the old filters out. I was certainly in need of new ones. I encourage you, whoever you are, to buy and change your filters yourself. Save yourself some change. It took me all of five minutes to complete and I felt so good about such a small task. Not having the resources I was banking on, gave me the motivation to lean on my abilities to learn. I was also very determined to complete the task considering the ease in access to the filters I had and my need for the filters.

I find myself more determined to learn to do mechanical tasks myself than to have to rely on others to provide me with the knowledge and tools. I find an immense amount of motivation to learn new things, especially considering my known capabilities. My moral independence comes from those who have taught me to learn and do things on my own time. Read, learn, do, and accomplish. My motivation has always stemmed from the contributions of and interactions with those who hold meaning to me. Within this occupation I am now more determined than ever, and I can express my own autonomy by choosing which task to complete, when to complete it, and how I complete it.