Don't Cry Over Spilled Coffee

This past week has been really stressful for me.  To say I have a lot going on right now is an understatement and I was starting to feel like I was being pulled in a hundred different directions.  To add to that, every time I felt like I was getting things accomplished and making some progress, someone or something would intervene and put me right back at square one.  It was like spinning round and round on a hamster wheel and going nowhere.  I was trying not to let it all get to me but that was almost impossible.  By Friday, the issues were mounting, my blood pressure was rising, my patience was being tested, and I was starting to feel a little defeated.  Then I spilled my coffee…

At about 9:30am on Friday morning, I was just starting my work day and I got a phone call from a co-worker asking me a question about a project that I was working on.  As I turned to grab the file folder for this particular project, the phone cord hit the Styrofoam cup of coffee sitting on my desk, spilling its contents all over my laptop key board.  As the panic hit me, I frantically scrambled to sop up the coffee with paper towels and prayed that this would not be the rest in peace moment for my computer.  After I got rid of the liquid, it seemed like my laptop was still intact.  Programs were still opening and I thought I was in the clear. 

So I went back to work and opened an email to respond.  As I began typing, my computer began to type things on its own.  Pretty much, it was possessed.   I decided that I would try to the old reboot option to see if a quick restart would solve my problems.  No such luck!  All rebooting did was give me dark screens and the key board was still acting with a mind of its own.  Prepare the obituary because my laptop was dead. 

Now you could say that my computer drama was pretty much the crappiest way to end an already bad week but for some reason I didn't fell that way at all.  I threw a facebook message up asking for someone to come to my rescue and got a computer savvy friend to give me some expert advice.  He told me to put my computer face down in rice.  As I talked on the phone to him, it sounded ridiculous but I did it.  I went to the grocery store and bought the biggest bag of rice I could find (10lbs to be exact).  I put my computer in a box and covered it in the rice.  I even carted the box out of my office and home so that I could remove it from the rice the next day.  The whole time this was happening, I found myself smiling and even laughing about the situation.



My Box O' Rice



The moral of this story, besides that liquids and electronics don’t mix, is that when life gets to you take some time to gain some perspective.  Take a minute and think about the stress you are under.  Are you creating it?   Are you making things bigger and more intense than they have to be?  Are you fighting battles that maybe you should just let go?  Basically, I was just letting everything get to me.  I was taking it all personally and the truth was that I had to step back and realize that it wasn't worth the stress.   I think I needed to spill coffee on my computer and laugh my way though the ridiculous do it yourself remedy that would hopefully save it to realize that bad things are going to happen and stress is inevitable but how you deal with it is what will determine your mood.  There really is no sense in crying over spilled coffee.  Oh and in the end things tend to work out just fine and I know this because I'm typing this post from my resurected laptop.

“Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle.” – Bill Phillips