I recently came across this draft that I never posted. Better late than never so here goes…
While many residents on the South Eastern coast were experiencing power outages because of hurricane Matthew, I was experiencing an outage of my own. I was safe and sound during the storm. In fact, it barley rained here, but I was still struggling. My wi-fi wasn’t working. No big deal at first, but as the weekend progressed I realized just how much I depend on wi-fi. On top of the wi-fi issue, I was dangerously close to going over my data for the month. Normally I have data that rolls over at the end of the month, but I was being recklessness. I did some traveling which contributed to the excessive data usage. Now no wi-fi on top of that?! It was the perfect storm and my generation’s worst nightmare. I’m not saying wi-fi is a necessity in life but it’s right up there with having gas in your car.
Without wi-fi, I couldn’t communicate like I normally do. I couldn’t communicate with my friend that was out of the country. I also found out that iMessage uses data/WiFi. I could communicate with other iPhone users via text message, however, I couldn’t receive their iMessage responses. Now I’m not one to get into a big debate over iPhone versus Android because I really don’t care. Neither of them pay me for endorsements. But this was strike 2 for iPhone. (Strike 1 was how awesome my selfies look when taken with my friend’s Samsung).
In the midst of troubleshooting research, my computer decides this was a fine time to update. It didn’t even give me the option to postpone. It was either restart now or in 10 seconds. Strike 1 PC. I did everything I could to get my WiFi running again but to no avail. I made the decision to just replace the router. Being the non-tech savvy engineer that I am, I knew I was going to need some help with this so I did some more research. Unfortunately, that really wasn’t much help either because I didn’t know what any of this stuff meant. I would have to do research to understand my research. I needed someone that knew more about this than me. I texted a tech savvy friend and asked him to assist me in picking out a new router. He said he would, or he could just give me the router that he wasn’t using. That text was music to my eyes and a relief to my pocket! I headed to his house immediately and was soon back in business.
The crux of the matter is that I had become used to having the world at my fingertips via wi-fi and cellular data. You never miss the water til it’s gone. It made me think about the people in our lives that we take for granted also. You don’t miss them or realize how much you depend on them until they’re gone. Sometimes we’re too stubborn and prideful to admit that we need help. Thankfully I recognized that I needed help and asked my friend. Not only was he able to help me, he had exactly what I needed to solve my problem completely. I’ve always been pretty independent. Usually asking for help is the last thing I do, if I ever ask at all. In this season of my life, I’m learning to recognize when I need help and be humble enough to ask for it. One of my favorite sayings is “A wise man knows how much he does not know.”
Moral of the story is, don’t take the people in your life for granted. Not only are they there to help you, they just may be the solution to your problem and you to theirs.
Resigned at 29 