Day Eight: Basic Wiring for Dummies...

Remember, back during the snowstorm when I had to give up on a project due to complete ineptitude?  Well, today was the day to redeem myself!  But first, let's travel back a few days so that I can give you the sad details of the origin of this novel experience.

My husband and I had purchased a programmable thermostat to be installed in our bedroom quite a few months ago and it has sat, untouched since the day we purchased it.  The packaging clearly states that it is a do-it-yourself, 15 minute installation so I decided that since I was snowed in it would be a perfect novel experience.  An incredibly novel experience, actually!  You see, dear reader, my husband and I, are not do-it-yourself people.  We are "pick up the phone and call one of our fathers" people.  In fact, we actually paid an electrician to install a nearly identical thermostat downstairs.  Pathetic, I know!  But sadly, true...

So on that snowy day, I opened the packaging and confidently pulled out the instructions.  The first step was to turn off the power to the heat source.  And with that, I was stymied...  A quick phone call to my father could have made this a surmountable challenge.  However, the bigger problem was that the directions also called for this strange tool that we do not own.  This foreign tool is called a drill.  Maybe some of you have heard of it?  Needless to say, the thermostat was not installed and I realized that I would need a much greater level of support than the directions could give me. 

So fast forward to today...  Since the birth of my son, my father has come over one day a week to visit and provide childcare when I am working.  So following the failed snowstorm attempt, I had asked my father to come prepared to show me how to install a programmable thermostat.  My father, toolbox in hand, examined the thermostat and started to get to work.  As I reminded him that I would like to do it myself with his supervision, his first response to me was, "Oh, you don't have to do that.  I can just install it."  Clearly this is the result of YEARS of training on my part! 

Of course, I insisted that I wanted to learn, so my father, myself, and my two children piled into my bedroom and got to work.  The first step, of course, was to remove the existing, archaic thermostat to make room for this high tech wonder.  I was a master with the screwdriver here, if I do say so myself.  However, I did make a gruesome discovery:  there's MERCURY in a traditional thermostat.  That coupled with the LEAD solder, ice pick, and razor cutting devices in my father's toolbox made this a HORRIBLE project to do with a curious, attention seeking two-year-old.  Again, before DHHS is called, the top priority of both my father and myself was keeping the kidlings safe.  But, geesh!  I had no idea that installing a thermostat could bring with it such risk!

But I digress...  I will spare you the boring details, but I did, in fact manage to successfully wire, attach, and program the new thermostat which is now functioning beautifully in our bedroom.  And I felt a little bit redeemed when my father, who has installed several similar thermostats in his own house and actually has specific training in this kind of stuff, stumbled over a few of the instructions in the manual and said that the "average person" would have trouble understanding the directions. And, FYI thermostat people, it took us over an hour... 

In my most favorite psychology book, Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, one of his main conclusions is that when we engage in activities that use our "signature strengths" we feel good.  (To identify what your signature strengths are please consider visiting his website and taking some of his top notch, research based assessments!) 

Seligman's belief is that when we use our signature strengths we can access a state that his colleague Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi, (trying saying that one ten times fast!), has coined as "flow."  I think it is safe to say that whatever signature strengths are involved in installing a thermostat, I don't have them.  There was nothing "flow-like" in this experience for me.  Frankly, I found this project tiring and stressful while taking part in it. 

That being said, I do feel good about my success with this project because it was so far out of my comfort zone.  They say, (or, rather, I tell my clients), that self-confidence is built by successfully managing challenges.  So, what this novel experience lacked in flow, it made up for by broadening my horizons and improving my self-confidence.  And that, dear readers, makes this particular novel experience a rousing success!