{"id":1298,"date":"2026-05-31T16:24:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T16:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2026-05-31T16:24:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T16:24:02","slug":"use-what-you-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/use-what-you-have\/","title":{"rendered":"Use What You Have"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I took my first trip out to the lake this morning with my RC boat because of on an <a href=\"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/use-your-unfair-advantage\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/use-your-unfair-advantage\/\">insight I had yesterday<\/a> as well as another <a href=\"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/rc-is-meditation\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/rc-is-meditation\/\">another one<\/a> last week.  I got there at 6am, a little after sunrise.  Except for a passing fisherman in a real boat, I was the only one there.  I have mixed feelings about this, but, I flipped the boat in the lake.  At first I had a strong &#8220;oh crap&#8221; reaction.  The only way for me to retrieve it was to take a swim.  Then I felt some embarrassment.  I can&#8217;t explain why other than I felt stupid for being in this situation and perhaps the fisherman might have been watching me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I took my clothes off and went for a swim.  To my surprise, the water wasn&#8217;t cold!  And in the end, it wasn&#8217;t a horrible experience.  Kind of refreshing, even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, it&#8217;s not something I really want to be doing at 6am (or do I?).  Here&#8217;s the conflict though:  I&#8217;d really like a  better boat.  One that is faster and doesn&#8217;t flip, or can right itself.  But that&#8217;s going to be hundreds of dollars.  And that sorta conflicts with one of my life philosophies I call:  <em>use what you have<\/em>.  It&#8217;s just that, using whatever things you already own as long as possible.  It helps prevent impulsive purchases that I later regret.  Like, how do I know if I will even keep doing this?  If I lose interest, then maybe I shouldn&#8217;t waste money and obtain more useless clutter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If I use what I have, I only have one battery.  I could just get more of those instead of spending hundreds on a new toy.  The batteries for this boat only last 10 minutes, but their fairly cheap.  I could get a few more, probably around $60.  But I&#8217;d be even more committed to a boat the flips easily and forces me to go swimming when perhaps maybe I won&#8217;t want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another thing I like to do is give myself a goal of using what I have X number of times.  And if I keep it up, then that warrants spending money on it further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ll need to keep thinking about this&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyways, it was a pretty cool morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"771\" src=\"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wildcat-1024x771.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1299\" srcset=\"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wildcat-1024x771.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wildcat-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wildcat-768x578.jpg 768w, https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wildcat-1536x1157.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wildcat-2048x1542.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I took my first trip out to the lake this morning with my RC boat because of on an insight I had yesterday as well as another another one last week. I got there at 6am, a little after sunrise. Except for a passing fisherman in a real boat, I was the only one there. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1300,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/1300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}