Are You Waiting On Your Life?
Have you ever felt as though you’re waiting on your life? At my weaker moments I let myself feel that way and I always regret it. I’m going to use myself as an example in this post. Yesterday I was writing all day, working on articles for myself and for clients. I also created several webpages for another site. But after loading the last page – the server crashed. Okay, if you happen to know what I was dealing – unfortunately – then you can relate to my frustration.
First of all, because I had loaded the pages from a notepad file – I deleted the files as soon as I had them loaded… That was a valuable lesson in itself. Never delete the file until you are sure that it won’t be needed.
I reported the server crash to my web host and they were immediately started working on the problem – but it took hours – and by that, I mean, hours and hours. When the server was back up I found that the pages I had last loaded were gone. The server was somehow only backed up to a certain point – and that did not include the last few hours before the crash. That meant that not only was the last page I loaded gone, but so was the others. More frustration.
Upon that realization I was online with tech support being told that they were trying to find a way to recover my lost content. This went on for about another hour. I did ask support if I should assume the content was lost and start it again, but I was told to submit a ticket and wait for a response via email.
After a long wait the dreaded email came that told me the content was indeed lost. So here’s my point – I spent hours of time waiting – waiting to see when the server would be back up, then waiting to see if my content would be recovered. In the end, the time I spent waiting could have been better spent re-doing the work I did yesterday. I could have had the pages ready to post again when the server came back up. Even better – if I was as wise as I am now, I would have kept the notepad files and all I would have needed to do is re-load the pages.
Okay – lessons learned.
The point is this – all night I felt as though things were ‘on hold’ and I felt that ‘hold’ was being placed on me by the fact that the server crashed and the technicians could not get it back up quickly enough. This scenario can be applied to many situations in life. Are you waiting for the motivation to do whatever it is in life that you know you want or need to do? Are you waiting for the right person to come along? Are you waiting on a raise or the lottery to end your money problems?
Each of us have to find ways to focus on what or who we want to be and then take actions to help us achieve that. The key is taking action. We have to assign a real value to our time, our energy, and our money. And, believe it or not, to the real estate in our minds. Okay, I may be a little off on that one, but this is what I mean – I spent hours stressed out about the lost content that I worked on yesterday. Rather than stressing I could have been more productive. I could have created totally new content that could be used to replace the content – just in case it was found to be totally lost, or the new content would be used for other purposes. Either way, I would have been doing something productive rather than simply being stressed and frustrated.
Another option for that situation would have been to do something else productive – like clean out a closet. Crazy idea – right? Well, it would have gotten my mind off the problem, and in the end, my closet would be neat and orderly and I would be ready to go shopping when my work is caught up. Not a bad alternative to stress and frustration!
We cannot control everything in our lives, but we can control how we react to the chaos and life’s little surprises. It does take discipline, practice, and more practice! Learning to give ourselves the option to make choices about what we do puts us in control and that helps reduce our stress and frustration. The end result is a feeling of empowerment, even when things aren’t going like you want them to. Try to find a lesson in life’s experiences – there’s almost always something you can learn. And remember to stop waiting on your life!