We have all heard that sometimes you have to have a breakdown before you can have a breakthrough.
If you are an alcoholic, for example, sometimes you have to have a breakdown before you are ready to gather your strength to kick the bottle. Sometimes we humans have to allow the hammer to come down before we face what’s really going on.
A little over a year ago, in January 2011, I was experiencing a full scale technological meltdown in my house. I can’t remember the exact order how it all happened, but by the time it was over, the fountain outside my studio was broken, my printer was broken, four out of the five landlines in my house weren’t working, my cell phone died and my desk top computer locked up, crashed and gave up. My computer backup wasn’t working, my Apple TV in my studio had gotten totally confused, several light fixtures had burned out and a few electric sockets were dead. Hmmm……..
Let’s just say I was less than happy about this. As you can imagine, gadgets are not my area of expertise. I felt overwhelmed to say the least. It wasn’t exactly the spiritual crisis I would have chosen for myself at the time, but then whom among us gets to choose our own spiritual crisis?
Who knows where I began untangling this mess, or how it all started getting fixed. I hired someone to fix the phones. When my cell phone died, I spent many wasted hours at an AT&T store, only to be directed by the guy who fixed my phones to the Apple store at the Lennox Mall. My phone guy told me that the Apple guys were the ones who could actually help me.
I sat the genius bar at the Apple store, nerves stretched. I went home and did everything the genius told me to do, only my cell phone got worse.
I went back to the Apple store the next day, practically in tears, when it became apparent that the only viable solution was to give up my cell phone of three years and get a new one.
Because I was so unhappy with the service I had received, the Apple guys allowed me to purchase the One-to-One program. This is a program for $99 that allows you to go in and take unlimited lessons. It’s for all those of us who were not born tekkies who unfortunately have to live with all these gadgets and their never ending updates.
About two weeks after I got my new cell phone, my desk top computer went kaput. Thanks to my One-to-One program, I knew where to go. I went back to the Apple store and chunked over a large sum for my laptop computer.
This, as I look back, was the great gift to me.
Suddenly I was freed up from my desk. I could write on my computer while relaxing in my hammock, lying in bed, on an airplane, in a car, in a yoga seminar. I could take it with me where ever I went.
And because I got my new Apple laptop, I had to take more lessons. I knew so little about computers I realized that I had killed my desktop computer because I had been turning it off incorrectly for four years. Who knew??
I went back and back and back again to the Apple store. The guys at the store started remembering my name. I learn in layers and I know that, so I would repeat the classes and try to let the techno thought process sink in as best I could.
Because I was taking lessons and because I had my new laptop, I learned how to use iWeb, which was a great Apple product that allows a person to make – you guessed it – their own website!
So at the end of the day, my technological breakdown ended up being a breakthrough because I started this blog.
I published my first article on May 28, 2011.
Since then, as of today when I publish this account, I will have written I believe 178 articles, if I am counting correctly.
I also took the time to upload testimonials from clients I have helped, countless photos, yoga videos and qi gong videos.
Me, the techno no-nothing, created her own blog.
Although there are numerous blog sites, I really like iWeb because I can be creative with it. I started taking photographs with my iPhone, and this has brought me a great deal of pleasure.
I take photos where ever I go. Intuitively, I chose the blog template recommended for photographers. I literally chose to share my vision of the world.
Even though I publish a newsletter every month through my other website, www.totalfitness.net, my blog has freed me up because this is something I can do myself, whenever I get the whim to write. I need other people to help me publish and post my newsletter. This blog is my work entirely, for better or worse.
By now, my phones, my printer, my fountain, my computer backup, my cell phone, the electric plugs, the lights, and my lap top are now working. My Apple TV had a beautiful slide show of all my flowers until it disappeared as part of my recent burglary.
I am not now nor will I ever be a techno genius, but I have had the breakthrough I needed to use the tools I need to get my message across.
