Backing Up My Assumptions

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“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha

Last week I experienced the digital version of having to evacuate the house. My beloved laptop stopped being able to connect to AC power. It’s been touchy for a couple of years so I’d been putting the plug in a certain way and then jiggling it until the red light came on. And then it stopped being able to charge at all.

So I had to grab everything I needed in the span of the power remaining on the battery.

In theory, this should be no problem. I back everything up to the Cloud. In practice, I like to put things in places that aren’t backed up and think I’ll organize them later.

I closed my laptop (to save battery, of course) and thought about it. The first list of things I came up with were the things I needed in the short term. It felt like this was the equivalent of getting my family out of the house in the case of an emergency. Pretty obvious what to grab and the high-level “go bag” I’d prepared helped make me efficient.

But then the next list of things were the precious things in case I couldn’t get my laptop back. These were the digital version of grabbing the baby books and my dad’s lucky baseball mitt before running out the front door.

At this point I was pretty sure I could live with what I had and just needed to spend the time to rebuild my old laptop for what I needed to get done. This is the step where I learned the most because I started making mistakes. I flubbed a post, called someone by the wrong name, and didn’t have time to double-check details.

I ran smack-dab into my assumption that even in the case of disruption, I should be able to get operate like it’s business as usual. Sure, I can rebuild a laptop, stop by the repair shop and still get Miss O to the orthodontist, make all our classes and activities, and just do meetings in the car. <eye roll> Dang, my face still hurts from hitting that metaphorical wall.

The good news is that I got the laptop to the shop with enough battery power remaining that they could get the encryption key they needed in order to fix it. I’ll be back to full power in a couple of weeks. But more lastingly, I learned that in order to give other people grace, I need to learn to give myself some too.

(featured photo from Pexels)

You can find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/ and Instagram @wynneleon

I host the How to Share podcast, a podcast celebrates the art of teaching, learning, giving, and growing.

I also co-host the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast, an author, creator and storytelling podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson.

65 thoughts on “Backing Up My Assumptions”

  4. I so get this wynne. this has happened to me twice and I do not have the tech skills you have so my panic was multiplied by a zillion, but it did cause me to go through similar type of prioritizing process before I was able to get it to my computers to my two miracle worker tech genius guys. I feel you pain and your sense of relief, both. sorry for the massive run on sentence

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  5. A modern fire alarm that I’ve been through several times. The last time I surrendered to losing many files that weren’t backed up and problems with reading music files as I moved from a laptop to a tablet. Ugh.

    Liked by 3 people

  6. “I learned that in order to give other people grace, I need to learn to give myself some too.” … Amen! … I’m still learning this. Thanks for the reminder Wynne.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Oh Wynne.. i’m sorry. I feel your pain. That had to be so frustrating. I had my share of scary possible hacks this week etc and it’s enough to near make me hang my writing shingle. Glad it’s ok now!
    xx

    Liked by 1 person

  9. I love the insight you gleaned from this maddening experience…gah! Technology…even for you. Even you can be betrayed by it – LOL!
    This made me grin…from recognition. Advice I ought to heed now and then:
    “I ran smack-dab into my assumption that even in the case of disruption, I should be able to get operate like it’s business as usual.”
    Wowee. Some of us tend to push through, no matter. Wired to keep moving but your reminder here…well-timed on a busy Monday morning for me. Sending hugs and love! 💝😊💝

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Oh Lordy, that is scary! I know the pain… my hard disc went kablooey and I lost four years of photos that I will never get back. Needless to say, I have to find a way to get those babies up to a cloud, too. (I mistakenly thought they were…)

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  13. Happy it appears there is a happy ending here, Wynne. I had a work PC die on me while I was working from home. That was a nightmare trying to get another, get it set up as soon as possible to not lose a lot of ground, reorganzing it to my specific needs, etc. I have never had a personal PC nightmare, but we do backup all of our “stuff” so if the laptop says “so long” we won’t long for missing items. As long as the backup works, of course…🙂

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  14. Whew! What a story, Wynne! I’m so glad you were able to save everything, including your laptop. But yes, definitely give yourself grace. You’re human, not superwoman.🥰

    Have a great week!💕🌸

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  17. I love your analogy that it was the digital version of evacuating your house, Wynne. There’s no time to think as you “grab” important things you’ll need. I felt it! I am relieved that it worked out, and you allowed yourself to forgive the person who juggles a gazillion tasks in a day. YES! You should! When the other shoe drops, just keep repeating “and this too, shall pass” because it does.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Some people become paralyzed under unexpected pressure, some run around like crazy, and others slow their tempo, think carefully, and find a way.

    Hello, #3.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Oh my goodness, I could feel the stress of those moments, Wynne / and it speaks to how digital our lives have become. I’m glad you were able to get the laptop resolved at the shop in time. 🙏

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Giving yourself grace, amen to that. Your story reminded me of our Continuity of Operations (COOP) drills. We can never be fully prepared when a catastrophe strikes, but we can do our best to mitigate the impact. It was always interesting to see personnel who never followed procedures, ensuring their work was uploaded to the “cloud,” show up at the new location with different terminals. The task always started with logging into the new terminal and being able to access work documents. Many failed the task because they left their documents on their computer desktops, so they had to start from scratch, since most of the time we stayed at the COOP site for a few days to test redundancies and update SOPs. Now, I depend on Apple’s Time Machine and cloud storage to keep myself functioning. Thank you for sharing this great story, my friend, and I’m glad your digital footprint is safe.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Oh, what a powerful exercise! I can imagine how interesting it was to see the test, the outcome and the revisions. Thank you so much for sharing this practice, Edward. Happy Veteran’s Day!

      Liked by 1 person

  24. I feel your pain, Wynne–computer issues can be SO frustrating. (Of course, I must admit my problem-solving skills leave much to be desired!) What bugs me most are instructions written by super-techies who don’t seem to test their instructions on those who DON’T have IT degrees! So glad all worked out well for you in the end!

    Liked by 1 person

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