Don't sweat the small stuff

Yesterday I had to give myself a good talking to.

It had started the night before, when shortly before going to bed I noticed that I couldn’t connect to the internet. That ruffled my feathers immediately, but I convinced myself all would be well in the morning so I was annoyed when I got up and it wasn’t.

There was a frenzy of activity as I hunted out the telephone number of my internet provider, and I could feel the tension in me rising in anticipation of the call I’d have to make, and the time I'd waste waiting for it to be answered, and my mind began to run on to what I could possibly do if there was to be no internet for several days.

It's true that nowadays life can become difficult without it, as I found out the last time I moved home a few years ago. For everything I needed to do, to set up services to my new home, including the internet, some bright spark would be sure to tell me to ‘do it online’.

Luckily I am a little bit computer savvy and I knew that in the short term I could not only use my phone directly, but use it to connect my computer and Ipad too. But it didn't stop my annoyance and dark mutterings about 'paying for a service I wasn't receiving'.

But of course it wasn’t the end of the civilised world. Life was going to go on, and all that was going to happen was that I might be inconvenienced for a while.

In the end it turned out that a large number of people in the south east were affected by the failure of a cable and my internet provider updated us by text for the whole period until we were up and running again.

In the meantime, I heard about a man whose family reunion in Australia was off, as a casualty of the Flybe airline collapse, finding out only at the airport, and the death of the first person in UK due to coronavirus. And they are really significant things, so what on earth was I doing, winding myself up over nothing.

And it set me thinking about how easy it is to do that. We add stress to already busy lives wondering about the 'what ifs' and conjuring up all sorts of dire outcomes to small problems. The smallest of incidents grows in our imaginations and can make us uneasy and sometimes even unwell.

Then with time comes reality and often it’s the case that the outcome is so much less than we'd feared. And if it is something serious then we somehow cope after all, because we have to.

So there’s a lot to be said for just stopping for a moment and bringing ourselves back to the current moment, where what's real is going on, and to try hard not to allow our minds to wander off on fantasy journeys of their own.

That’s my thought for the coming weekend anyway.

I hope that all of you will have a worry-free and as happy a weekend as possible.

With warmest best wishes to you all.

[Lynd]

Yes I get very agitated when my Internet goes down. We do so much online these days it is a real inconvenience when it disappears.

Glad you are up and running again Callendersgal. X

[sassy59]

Losing the Internet is perceived as being terrible, which sometimes it is, but I take a deep breath and rejoice in the fact that family are very nearby so things are not so bad.

I try and count my blessings and not over think things as I don’t need the stress.

Have a great weekend Callendersgal and I hope everyone is able to find all they need in the shops. We’re suffering a shortage of loo roll, paracetamol and hand gel in this area. What next I wonder.

Take care all, stay safe and well. Xxxxx

[Hidden in reply to sassy59]

I must admit sassy59, I love to go on a cruise and have no internet, but then I have no bills to pay for its duration.

My friends in other areas are starting to speak of the same shortages as you are finding. There’s been no hand gel here for weeks already but everything else is Ok for now. Did you know you can make your own gel with aloe Vera gel and rubbing alcohol? Mind you even the rubbing alcohol is beginning to be in short supply now except for some very expensive ones!

But I think that the British usually excel at times like this and we are stoic and willing to help each other.

Likewise sassy59, enjoy your weekend. Very best wishes. X

[Lynd in reply to Hidden]

No problem getting loo rolls but can't get hand sanitizer.

Reminds me of when you couldn't get bread back in the seventies 😁

[Hidden in reply to Lynd]

Yes Lynd and the sugar frenzy, also of the seventies🙄🙄😃

[Jennymary]

Next time you're without Internet at home, remember if you have a library card you can always use computers in your local library

[Hidden in reply to Jennymary]

Excellent reminder Jennymary and it’s only a short walk to my local library too!

[Deejim]

Lovely post, had to just add my single daughter (47) worked for Flybe as a planner so now redundant. She was totally gutted, but had to pick herself up and look for new opportunities, she couldn't live without internet at present. Although does know the telephone hotspot trick. Lol

[Hidden in reply to Deejim]

Hi Deejim,

So sorry to hear about your daughter's plight. It's always such a blow to lose your job in that way, and sometimes especially so when you have reached your forties. I hope that a new opportunity will come her way soon. The internet is definitely very necessary for networking when you are job hunting.

Wishing you both all the best, and thanks for your lovely positive comment on my post.

[secrets22]

Oh I hear you ,it certainly is a blow when we have internet problems,and i'm having problems all the time recently,in fact I am sure I need a new computer.

we all do a lot of business on line but that is far from plain sailing,passwords and numbers for logins ,and even then it often becomes a nightmare.

I spent hours last week trying to figure a few things out and I had documents to download to sign,and then the printer would'nt work,and I told them they must send hard copies for me to sign,i honestly thought I was losing it.And as for taking photo's and posting on the internet,i hav'nt a clue,or rather I dont want to know how.

I am convinced the world was a kinder place before the internet,in fact I refuse to use a mobile phone,i do have one for emergencies ,but I have no wish to be contacted all day every day,for me the landline is plenty.

[Hidden]

Hi secrets22,

I absolutely agree with you about a kinder, and often more efficient world, before we relied so much on the internet. Companies have leapt to leaning heavily upon it because it's much cheaper than investing in people, and often, there's now a problem when trying to speak to a human to help. The process is made frustrating and long-winded to deter you. I had a huge problem last year over an incorrect gas meter number which had been assigned to me with no-one noticing for a full nine years. It led to my account being snatched away from me by the person whose meter number it really was, when they changed energy supplier online. It took 9 months and the energy ombudsman to sort it all out, and wouldn't have even arisen in the days before online technology. I'd have physically walked to the 'gas board offices, and explained the problem.

And how many times do we start to complete online forms or download them to find that it doesn't work, or they won't print out, usually due to some error at the remote end, or our own printers become fickle.

We've lost nearly all of our banks and the ones we have are often manned by machines and not people. We are encouraged to order groceries online and only have a second's interaction with the delivery guy, when for the lonely, physical contact outside the home is so important, so isolation is being spread. It's not a pretty picture all around really. Young people constantly staring at screens, ignoring their children in favour of Facebook, and now I notice, being unwilling to engage in conversation at all, and wanting to text instead.

What looked like a boon at the outset is taking an unfortunate turn, with scammers through to commercial companies, to police and governments able to easily access so much information about us without our being even aware of it.

And I'm giggling to myself, because I do have a mobile phone, but I get unreasonably irritable when someone actually calls me on it, because, like you, I hate that feeling of having to snap to attention at any hour of the day or night, to answer a call.