Sometimes Broken is the Best Fix

Hi everyone! Check out my guest post at Lori Deschene’s Tiny Buddha. I share a personal experience I had with a homeless man in the rain. But be sure not to stay too long. You do have an article here waiting to be read, you know! 🙂 

Well, my router just died the other day.

No big deal, but didn’t know why I couldn’t go online at first. So I asked a computer-savvy friend to take a look to see if he could figure it out.

He ran some simple diagnostics and reported the problem. Case closed.

But alas, life is not always so simple. When I plugged in directly to the modem (to bypass the deceased router), I found my computer still denying internet access.

And so I’ve been unplugged from all things online since Friday afternoon. That includes email, Facebook, Twitter, and yes, no Meant to be Happy (If you’re wondering how I then could post this article, I uploaded it at work – off the clock – where, unfortunately, all social media is blocked).

And so there I was over the weekend, lost, adrift without a paddle, stranded, abandoned, left to wilt in the cyberlandless desert, alone.

I felt (and was) disconnected. I was (and felt) isolated. Life seemed to be passing me by, unplugged.

What kind of comments were being left on my last post, I wondered. Did they like what I wrote? Maybe there were no comments at all. Maybe the post was too long (it was over 2,000 words!). And what about visits? Were people stopping by to read?

Oh the fears of potential rejection. Isolation. Blind, unable to see. Trapped in a cocoon of internet darkness. An impenetrable fog.

I paced. I moped. I complained. I sat at my laptop, impotent, staring into the emptiness, pecking at keys I knew would do nothing. Those words, those infernal words, “internet access denied” boring into my very soul, as I wondered if I would ever see life and light again.

And so I sulked from the office, wandering the lonely halls of our home into strange new surroundings. And then I turned the corner and saw it.

I blinked in utter confusion, rubbing my eyes in wonder as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. What was this thing before me? What was this strangeness? What could it be and what could it mean?

And then I remembered. Oh, that’s my family!

And suddenly I no longer felt disconnected or stranded or wilting or blind. Suddenly I could see more clearly, in fact. Suddenly, no one felt abandoned.

And then I sighed. And smiled. And talked. And played. And was simply with those I love most in life.

Sometimes simple things remind us what’s most important. And so I’m glad routers sometimes break down and internet access is denied and priorities get nudged a bit closer to home so they more readily fall into proper order.

Lesson Learned: It’s one thing to write about priorities. It’s an altogether different thing to live by them. And the difference between the two matters profoundly.

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Photo provided by Pixabay