There’s already plenty of good advice here. The one that I think is missing is that the clutch pedal probably has like 10 inches of travel, but it only cares about 1 inch of it. All the rest is just slop. You need to figure out where that zone is, and get good at hitting the start of that spot quickly.

Once you can get to the start of that zone reliably, then you can start working on how fast you release the clutch through that zone. The more power you’re applying with the throttle pedal, the faster you can release the clutch through this zone.

Not really no. I make a point to game online a bit with my nephews on Friday nights. But the rest of the week - no, there’s just too much that needs doing. In addition to working full time, cooking, and maintaining the home, now that I’m older I have also added making a point to get enough sleep and get my workouts in. That’s it, that’s all the time there is.

I purposely booked a week of vacation for my birthday this year where I intend to finally play Breath of the Wild. And that’s it, that’s the whole week. Looking forward to it.

A large part of it is choice. I choose to be happy, and my dumb monkey brain says ‘ok, I guess we’re going to be happy today’. There’s a real truth to ‘fake it til you make it’, except it should be ‘fake it until it becomes real’. There was a post yesterday about people being locked into their customer service personality even after they get home from work. Sort of like that. You can lock yourself into your happy person.

Of course, that’s not enough. You also need to figure out what really makes you tick - what do you truly enjoy? For me, I enjoy being creative and applying that to fixing shit. Is that dumb, probably. But man, I’ll be on a high for a month after I save a car that should have gone to the junkyard.

Honorable mention for my truck. 1997 F-150. Turns 28 this year, just put a rebuilt motor in it, hoping for another 20 years.

A pair of toe-nail clippers my grandfather gifted me. I’m guessing late 1940s. As far as I can tell, it was something he bought from the on-base military store as things were winding down after WW2. It’s rugged in a way you wouldn’t expect - it was clearly built to last, well, indefinitely. Has this excellent leather carrying case in military olive green that is also wildly over-designed. Not flashy, just built to last.

It really makes me appreciate - we used to know how to make things here (USA). And we were so good at it, even the dumb little things could be built to last.

I always wanted to see if I could ‘fix’ the Berkley Pit mine. It’s a superfund site with some of the most acidic water in the world. It was a cooper mine for decade that went bust. When the owners walked away, it started filling up with rain water. But, because of the way mines work, that water became VERY acidic. So now there’s this lake of acid out in Montana that no one wants to deal with.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit

Inter-mountain Histories: https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/376

ChemAnalyst News - Pit might have rare earth minerals: https://www.chemanalyst.com/NewsAndDeals/NewsDetails/montana-toxic-legacy-could-become-america-rare-earth-savior-36626