Blog Computers, Frustration and Gratitude
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
How many of us get frustrated with our home and work on computers, not to mention phones and iPads? We grumble because they are too slow. Then there are the error messages that drive us nuts, often, because the error messages don’t make sense or don’t provide enough information to correct the problem. As for battery life, there is never enough.
I take battery life seriously. In my purse, I carry cords and a plugin for my phone and iPad. I have any number of chargers. On one trip to our daughters. (It was Keith & me, Kurt & Cassie and her family, Kurt’s brother Grant & Tami and kids, and Tami’s mom visiting.) For some reason, I packed all my chargers. When the electricity went out in much of the Omaha area, my charges kept our phones going.
For all the frustration, it dissipates when I recall the early days of personal computers. We had tapes instead of drives. Those first computers didn’t even have hard drives and the first ones would horrify today’s users who expect mega gigs of storage. We couldn’t afford the price of games for our kids so Keith, painstakingly, entered data from the magazines of the time, often taking more than one day to do so.
As for vulnerability, we didn’t worry about hacking. Shoot! We could lose data, even the whole computer when the lights flickered. A friend and I were working on their Apple C when the electricity went out. Scared us. While we were concerned about the newsletter we were working on, we prayed the computer itself hadn’t been damaged. For years, we were told to turn off computers if it stormed—especially an electrical storm. Now we do nothing. (BTW, the computer and our newsletter were OK.)
Today, we have great programs, lots of storage and, compared to those early years, our computers are lightning quick. I’ve decided when those frustrations come with my computer devices today, I need to remember, let go of my complaints and frustrations, and simply give thanks.
Maybe I need to choose to do the same with other complaints as well. It would sure lower my stress levels. How about you?
© 2022 Carolyn R Scheidies
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