Life needs an Italian tune-up

Shaking things up can be really good, if we do it at the right time

It’s early Sunday morning. There’s a cold breeze stinging my nostrils. The sun peaks from the east, behind the mountains of Cartago. Clouds align themselves perfectly to welcome it. The door creaks; there’s a particular scent to old cars, vinyl, gasoline, and a different way of making things.

In its entire life, it’s done a total of 26 000 miles. In one year, it rolls less than a thousand miles. It might be 40 years old, but that old BMW can still kick it. But every now and then, I’ll drive it hard, really hard. After a warm up, I’ll take to the mountain roads leading to Orosi, stepping hard on the gas, tossing it from side to side, braking, turning, accelerating.

During the 60’s (and all the way up to today), Ferrari owners weren’t keen on frequently driving their pricy vehicles, so Italian mechanics would pour a special additive on the tank, which helped removed carbon build-up, and take them out for a proper, hard-driven spin around a track. The track wouldn’t be too long, no more than 20 miles, and right after finishing, they would service the entire car. This was called an Italian tune-up; a major shakedown of the car.

But Italian tune-ups can’t be done all the time. In fact, I must choose carefully when to do it. Once I’m done, I service it and drive it sedately for six more months.

We’re taught to become creatures of routine, programmed to work at a certain time, accomplish certain objectives, and earn certain rewards. To accomplish this, we are told that we need to focus all our efforts, our creativity, our abilities into one thing. Our minds are our most powerful tools, yet we train it for one particular task: accounting, law, medicine, arts, etc. Just one.

No one tells us that when that task is over, we’re left on the side of the road, discarded, left to corrode under the pressure of being outdated.

So, just like that old BMW, life needs an Italian tune-up. There are moments in which we need to drive hard, break the habit, shake our bones and move to a different path. A proper tune-up in life comes at a moment in which we feel we have entered a routine and it doesn’t motivate us.

When we wake up at the same hour, every day, drive exactly at the same traffic jam, with the same people next to us, sit on the same chair, and turn on the same computer to find the same emails, all to fulfill something we don’t like, that we must step on the gas.

After all, we are creative beings, and our creativity needs to be fueled, not restricted. Most people will say: go hard or go home, a philosophy that might seem daunting. How do I change my entire life? But we can take a corner the wrong way, even accelerate at the wrong moment and lose control.

We don’t have to. We don’t have to see the world as black or white. Instead we can choose a specific aspect to shake up, and keep the others in order.

Three years ago I wasn’t happy with my life in engineering. Though I love numbers and design, the real-life approach to engineering wasn’t my cup of tea. After deliberation, I said to myself: I love social content, communication and creating, why not take out a master’s degree in something like that?

But then my life appeared, as if I had ignored it: a relationship, a salary, my responsibilities in the family company. I couldn’t leave everything behind, could I?

A friend innocently said: well, why don’t you start studying Journalism or Communications? You could do that at your own rate, without sacrificing your income as an engineer and it also allows you to delegate responsibilities within your job. When you finish your degree, you get your master’s and the transition won’t have been so hard.

Three years later, I realize she couldn’t have been more right: it turned out I didn’t have to leave everything behind.

Had I chosen to step on the gas, shake up my life and let go of all the carbon build-up by say, quitting my job, leaving my country and starting a totally new career from scratch, I might’ve not had the necessary basis for a solid development. Also, because of this major change, I would’ve had to make my new career an obligation. I probably would’ve enjoyed it far less.

Instead, I chose to study on the side, while learning other tricks that would help my trade, and now, with just three study-blocks to go, I’m about to finish my second career. The things I’ve learned in my current job have helped make my studies easier (management of time, working with classmates, objective-driven studies, etc.) and the knowledge from my studies have helped my job (communication skills, group efforts, company promotion, etc.). All this gave me a proper platform for my next endeavor, be it a Master’s, another job, who knows?

Life is sometimes sold as black or white, fight or flight, go big or go home, and that’s fine. Many people actually work better this way, and that doesn’t mean that we all have to. In fact, if this frightens us, we can always remember that we’re in control of our lives, and whichever aspects we choose to change from it.

In fact, if this frightens us, we can always remember that we’re in control of our lives, and whichever aspects we choose to change from it.

So, just like that Italian Tune-up, we can choose exactly when to step on the gas and for how long. In fact, if we do it right, we might end up removing all of the dirt while having fun. So, just like on a Sunday morning, we get into our cars, start them, and just drive, enjoying the view and, if our destination changes, it’s okay. We drive there, hard, or slow, but we just drive.