Back-Up Plans - What Would You Save in Case of Fire?

Have you backed up your computer files lately? If not, think (just for a moment) about what is important to you and find some way to safe guard that-which-cannot-be-easily replaced.

Our main computer has been 'ill' for quite some time. A few months ago, I called my friendly, neighborhood computer-guy and he gave the computer a little CPR and it has been holding on. That is, until I re-infected it with a 'bug' of some sort.

I took all of the clean-up knowledge I have (and added a little of what I thought I understood) and effectively wiped out our computer yesterday morning. Yes. Erased. Completely and fully.

I had to make an embarrassing phone call. "Yes, Doctor. I tried to do the surgery you performed when you were here. I failed. I think my patient died. Can you help me now?"

There is always something to be grateful for. I was counting my blessings before I was tallying up my losses.

First of all, I backed up my files before I did what I could not un-do. Secondly, my family book project (that I have been working on for almost six years) is safe and sound on a separate computer, with all of the documentation and up-to-the-date book revisions on a USB drive I keep separate and apart from the computer itself. Had I lost The Book, I may have needed a little CPR myself.

Number 1 - count your blessings. Practise gratitude. As bad as things seem to be, they could always be worse. What is one measly little computer in the whole scheme of things? Not much, I tell you. Really!

Number 2 - have a back-up plan (or in my case, a back-up drive). I always wondered how this backing-up-my-system would work in case of emergency. It seems I will now find out. My computer guy asked me a few questions about my back-up program. The process of restoring our files sounds a little labor intensive because he must first recreate our computer-as-it-was. That sounds expensive, doesn't it?

Number 3 - it is only money. If our only problems are ones which money can solve, we are very lucky indeed! Boy, am I ever lucky!!

I had been putting off replacing our computer until my finances were in a better place. It seems an act of self sabotage fast forwarded my plan. I had intended on calling my computer-guy at the beginning of the week but I talked myself out of it. I thought I could 'put a band-aid' on the situation and get us through until I was more ready. The band-aid just may have held, if I had not decided to perform surgery...

Part of the reason I was delaying the inevitable new computer scenario is because I have accumulated a wealth of clutter within this very computer. I was in the process of promising myself to never again let things get to this point. But before I was to get to that point, I needed to clean up my existing files.

Sometimes life takes the choice out of your hands. What you think you cannot live without or replace or recreate becomes a question of "What is most important?"

There is absolutely nothing on that computer I cannot live without. It will be very inconvenient to have lost everything but if that happened to be the case, what can a person really do? Start over.

Starting over seems devastating at the time but sometimes losing the 'clutter' of the past has hidden benefits. It takes the choice out of your hands.

When my little family and I started out on our own 26-1/2 years ago, it was with little more than the clothes on our back. We ended up with a little more than that, but not much. Had we been able to pack up what was rightfully ours when we moved out and moved on, it would have come with a cost. The burden of carrying the excess clutter and the weight of the memories attached was not worth the fight.

We started out anew. We moved into a town house and our basement was empty. It was an amazing feeling of freedom and renewal. We saved ourselves and that was all which truly mattered. My back-up plan was a family who held me up and supported me until I got my sea legs again. Money could buy all that we had lost. Material wealth is immaterial when it comes right down to it.

Look at the clutter within your life. Safe guard that-which-is-not-easily-replaced. Keep it simple. If you could save only one thing in a fire, what would it be? Protect and nurture that-which-you-would-run-out-of-a-burning-building with. The rest? It is only a minor inconvenience to replace that, which money can buy.