Spray Nozzle

My spray nozzle for my hose is broken.

Oh, it had been going for a long time. The plastic ring which secures the handle to body and allows the pressure to be applied (thus producing water) has been slowly slipping for months now.  I noticed it every time that I used it, it was slipping more side to side.  Finally, one day it simply broke.

One would think that I would just go get a new spray nozzle.  I am too economical for that; after working with it I figured out that if I held it a certain way and made sure that I applied pressure directly to the trigger point it works just fine.  If I slip a little to one side or the other, I suddenly lose pressure.

Wonderful.  I saved myself $3.00 or so.  But last week, as I struggled to get it aligned again, I suddenly realized that this was reflective of my life as well.

Over time the ring of my life - the ability to fulfill a purpose, to do something -wears away as we constantly face the realities of daily life.  We learn to do what we have to, perhaps not what we like.  It keeps wearing, we keep going - until the ring breaks.  Then what?  For me,  I suddenly realized that I start learn to compensate.  Rather than go ahead and fix the process (it is not as if I can run to a garden supply store and buy a new life), I learn to compensate:  apply pressure right here and life will continue to work.

The difficulty, of course, is that one has to spend greater and greater time applying pressure to that one point - to the point that the effectivity and efficiency of the process is lost by the time spent trying to make the thing work.

My life (unlike the nozzle) is not made of cheap plastic.  I believe it to be able to be repaired.  The question is by mechanism.

If purpose is the ring which secures the effort of our lives (the handle) to the effort of our lives (the nozzle) then how do I re-discover it to reattach the handle?