Column: Something About Nothing

My computer told me one morning recently that it had recovered from a serious error. It announced it in huge letters splattered across my screen. I encounter that message many days on the computers that I repair at our business.

However, this message was warning me. It meant something was wrong. It meant that I had to pay attention. It meant that I had better back up my hard drive. Why hasn’t my computer technician (me) backed up my files?

I wondered what life would be like if something would read our mind and bodies and splatter that message on our bathroom mirrors so we would pay attention.

We would wake up and see on our mirror: “You have recovered from a serious error.” Would we pay attention? We pay attention when our computers give us that message but we ignore that message in our own lives probably because it is not scattered across the bathroom mirror in a blatant reminder.

We know we have to make changes. We can feel the stress in our lives building. We reboot our bodies each day and ignore the signs that are there. Perhaps we have a headache; perhaps our stomach is churning. Perhaps we lose our temper easily or cry at the drop of a hat. We ignore the messages that we have to make changes or the stress in our lives eventually will no longer let us reboot.

We fix our computers when we get that error message because we don’t want to lose all of our valuable information. We have to deal with the huge message that keeps popping up on our screen reminding us that we might experience the death of our files if we don’t fix it.

We don’t fix that message in lives because it is a niggle or a nudge. We don’t take it seriously until some mornings our body doesn’t want to reboot as well as it did the day before.

We, like our computer, can recover from serious errors before we lose all of our information if we take the time to read the signs before we crash.

My computer was showing me signs that it was not well. It was slowing down. I built my computer eight years ago and it has preserved the thoughts in my mind for eight years. It has given me knowledge about the world as I Googled for adventure.

Occasionally I had to boost its memory because like me it would lag and take awhile to find something. When it was sick from a virus I would doctor it until it was well. Its bright flowered case has made me smile when I was sad. Now I know that its drive to live is almost over. It is saying to me “How slow can I go before I let loose of all I know?”

To take care of a computer we keep it free of dust, clean out our junk files, put in more ram when it needs more speed and use security products to keep it safe from viruses. We back up our files so we don’t lose them in case of a serious virus or a failing hard drive. We put passwords on our computers and our accounts to safeguard them from theft. We download updates for our programs to keep our computers secure. We do everything we can to keep our computers from broadcasting that serious error message. When we do get the message we take it to the computer doctor.

What will you do the next time you feel a niggle or a nudge of the possibility of a serious error message in your life? Will you back up your files like you would your computers files? What security measures will you use to back up your life?

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net. Her blog is www.thankfuljoy.com. Listen to KBEW AM radio 1:30 p.m. Sundays for “Something About Nothing.”