Hi all,
sorry about the long absence. There has been lots of changes in my life in recent months and only now starting to settle down again. But before I tell you all about the good news, I thought I'd get the bad stuff out of the way first. Like a cleansing, I guess.
A week ago, our place was burglarized and many of our (my flatmates & I) belongings were taken. With the exception of my flatmate's classic do-up car, all items stolen have been electronic goods. Big screen TVs, cameras, DVD players, laptops, external hard drives, PS3, etc...
Most of it can be replaced by the insurance company. Some of it we will not be claiming on, like certain missing toys & DVDs of the adult nature. But, some stuff is irreplaceable.
In my laptop, and the back-up hard-drives, was the sum of all my work from the last few years. Articles, unpublished blogs, seminar notes, ebooks, therapy notes, business documents (everything from income projections through to logo designs), photographs, CVs, an extensive collection of music albums & movies and much more. About 300 gigs of data, and a 800 gigs of media. All gone.
Some of you may have suffered similar losses, others may have lost different but equally important sentiments. So I thought I would share with you my process of dealing with this situation.
As I figure, there are three phases to dealing with such a loss.
Phase 1: "The initial shock of being slapped in the face."
I spent the first three days, feeling sorry for myself, drinking myself to sleep, hoping for miracles, and experiencing the most horrifying and vivid nightmares since the pre-NLP days. I knew it wasn't the best thing to do, but I allowed myself the time to grieve. After all, it is not easy losing three years of accumulated personal effects, let alone losing all the work related data, that I had built up in preparation for my business.
I fantasized about finding the culprits and retaliating with brutal acts of violence. I will spare you the gruesome details, but it was very ugly.
I felt nauseated by the thought of someone formatting the hard drives and erasing years of sleepless nights, hundreds of inspired & inspiring stories & articles. And as some of you will recognize, I had that terrible, in the pit of the soul feeling, like being kicked in the crouch feeling, that seemed to persist longer than I would comfortably like to admit.
Phase 2: "Moving forward"
As you'd expect, in true Maxist fashion, on the fourth day, a ray of light shone through illuminating the darkness, a breeze blew through clearing the dusty thoughts and like a rebirth moment, I was myself again. I decided that I had been stupid, allowing the burglars, not only to rob my laptop & work, but also rob me of my positive self.
I decided that they did me a favor. I can now start again, and do it better the second time around. It would be the ultimate revenge… moving on in style.
“Great, very positive, Max” I hear you say. Right?
Well… yes, but just not enough. The control freak in me doesn’t want to let go, so I’m contemplating the third stage.
This is where it gets interesting.
Phase 3: The ultimate selfless act.
I haven’t done this yet, and I’d like to hear your opinion first before I take this step.
I don’t think it’s enough to move on, and I don’t think negativity is the answer either, so I am considering the ultimate pay-it forward stunt. What if I published the password to my laptop’s desktop?
There’s a lot of info and personal information for them to see, some of it very personal. Crazy, right? But here’s the thing…
Firstly, I have nothing to hide, in general, as most of my friends will attest. Brutally honest with everyone, and mostly with myself, so if these guys would learn things about me, it’s not anything they wouldn’t have learned from hanging out with me. They might even grow to like me. Egotistical, I know, which is why this isn’t enough reason.
However, the main purpose in giving them access to my most intimate thoughts and work is, HELP THEM. Can you imagine how much they would learn and grow if they took the time to read the files I have stored in [My Documents]?
Apart from becoming well educated and motivated thieves, they might actually learn that there’s more exciting ways to make money and better ways to challenge authority without risking prison time.
And before you make your judgment, remember that there’s a very fine line between genius and madness. So, on which side does this idea fall?
Should I do it?
What do you think?
