We recently had to move a bunch of furniture several hours south. Logistically it was going to be complicated. We were going to have to get it offloaded from a semi-truck to one location, and then figure out how to get it all to a different location. Some of this stuff was really heavy and plenty of stairs would come into play. At this stage in my life, my first reaction was that we needed to hire a moving company.

I always worry about hurting my back when lifting heavy things. I worry about damaging stuff because, well, we’re not professionals. I didn’t want to deal with renting a U-Haul trailer. I hate asking for help just in general… asking friends to help move is the worst. It was one thing when we were twenty and people were happy to come over just for the pizza and beer. At this age I’d feel awful if a friend got hurt as we tried to carry something heavy up a flight of stairs.

In summary, I was grumpy about the whole thing before we even started. When the quote came back for a moving company in the several thousand-dollar range, that guaranteed we’d be doing it ourselves. My outlook was not improved.

Despite my sour mood and general grumpiness, somehow things just seemed to work out. The semi-truck driver was a really nice guy and agreed to come directly to our house to offload. We ended up with free use of a nice 16-foot enclosed trailer. A friend called and offered to help without my having to ask. Everything just lined up perfectly.

All this drove home a couple of life lessons:

• You’re always better off just diving into a project and getting it done. Things are rarely as hard and unpleasant as you make them out to be in your head.
• Once I embraced the task and broke a sweat, I actually enjoyed getting stuff moved, unpacking, and cleaning up. It felt good to have worked hard and accomplished something.
• Parents, find a way to teach your kids how to back up a trailer. It’s something I rarely do. It’s embarrassing as an adult male to struggle with this and have lots of people directing and “helping” you in real-time.
• Don’t let yourself become so deconditioned that you can’t move furniture around.

And last, but not least… strive to maintain a can-do and get shit done attitude. It’ll make you happier and the people around you happier. I’ve certainly lost that lately. Working on it. Recognizing issues is half the battle, right?