The Aftermath

Some of you know by now that I had a recent computer crash and it took a day or two to sort out the resulting mess. Thankfully, I’ve learned enough about computers over the past few decades where I could work a little magic and keep the damage to a minimum. Now, I’m back in working order and it got me thinking…

Whether we like it or not, nothing brings out our best (and worst) as when things go South. Computers crash, paper files get lost for one reason or another, and the frustration mounts to a point where you want to lash out at the closest someone.

When your everyday activities come to a screeching halt, there is a tendency to stop, scratch your head in confusion, get angry, and then roll up your sleeves and figure out how to fix the situation. If you’re me, that is. If not, then your mileage may vary.

One of the things that I pride myself on is being able to gift others with the benefit of my mistakes and how I overcame them so that, hopefully, they won’t make the same missteps that I have. I gain nothing by doing these things, but I don’t lose anything either. I’m a strong-willed guy, but I’m also a compassionate guy and while I work very hard to keep my emotions in check (suck on that, Spock), I also recognize that it bothers me when I see people making mistakes that I’ve made in the past and coping horribly.

Now, what did I learn from this experience?

1) Backups! Backups! Backups! I can never stress this enough. I keep two sets of auto-backups on Google Drive and One Drive in case of this kind of thing going down and that redundancy has paid off in spades. Don’t ask what the exchange rate is on Spades because I have no idea. 😉

2) Keep Your Cool. Getting upset and freaking out does nothing to solve the problem except demonstrate that you’ve stared too long into The Abyss, saw what was staring back, and then gave it a wave. There is no such thing as a problem that can’t be solved, only solutions that aren’t to our liking.

3) Don’t Take Chances With Equipment That You Need. The computer crash was my fault entirely because I was screwing around with Windows 10 on a machine that I knew I needed for my writing. The first time (yes there another time before this one) I got lucky because The Computer Gods were loving me. This time around, not so much…hehe. Bottom Line, don’t play Russian Roulette with resources that you can’t easily replace.

4) Resolve to Learn From The Experience. There is no shame in making a mistake. Hell, we’re human so it’s somewhere in the job description. But, learning from a mistake helps to not repeat the experience or at the very least, come up with new and better mistakes to make later.

Well, that’s about it. I could probably list a dozen more, but I have nine invisible Greek Chicks whispering in my ear to get back to working on a certain story involving intrepid investigators prowling around in an outpost full of dead people and holographic monsters. Thanks for your time and special thanks to those who wished me well. Love you guys. 🙂