Speak Up

Day 90

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life. Define yourself.”

– Harvey Fierstein

The good news is, after another couple of hours of troubleshooting with the same senior tech support guy as yesterday, he was finally able to restore my book collection, all data tags in tact, minus 32 books. I can live with that, because trying to figure out which 32 books are missing would be a exercise in frustration that I’m just not willing to take on. I’m grateful.

I’m still waiting for a fix to the crawling speed of my computer and the iPad connectivity issues, but I’ve been sending out positive vibes with the belief that everything will work out, so I’m starting to see a light at the end of the Apple-product-breakdown-from-hell-tunnel. The books were my biggest concern and that’s mostly resolved, but I obviously still have some limiting beliefs about Apple not operating as usual after Steve Jobs, because I had another relatively minor hiccup today due to a five hour update to my iPhone that should’ve taken an hour at the most. At least the update didn’t break my phone. I’m grateful. 

I can’t help but wonder why all these issues happened, all at the same time. I feel like there’s something more to it because there is no reason in the world why disconnecting iBooks from iCloud should have deleted my iBooks collection from my computer. For those of you who aren’t technical, it’s like saying if you cancel your subscription to a mail order magazine, that the magazines you already have at home will vanish into thin air. I’m sure that’d make you scratch your head. And even if by some crazy voodoo magic that did happen, iCloud should have had a copy, but they didn’t. That’s like saying the magazine company stopped printing magazines because you cancelled your subscription. Not likely.

Although you wouldn’t photocopy all your magazines in case they evaporated, it is normal to back up your computer, but I don’t do it nearly as often as I should. Now, here’s the thing, fortunately, I had a copy of all my magazines just in case they vanished into thin air. By some crazy fluke, I accidentally, but consciously deleted some data a couple of weeks ago, so I backed up my computer right after that happened. If I hadn’t accidentally deleted my data, I wouldn’t have had the backup that was used to restore my book collection.  And my book collection is infinitely more irreplaceable and valuable to me than the data I lost a couple of weeks ago. I’m grateful. 

So what’s the connection? How are these events related, and what is the message or lesson or gift that this experience is meant to bring?

For Apple, it’s obvious – losing my book collection has been a great help to them because they are now aware of a major bug that has the potential to be disastrous for them if many more customers were to lose huge amounts of data because iCloud isn’t working correctly. That’s huge.

But what does it mean for me? Since this happened, I’ve felt like I have to explain or justify why my book collection is important to me, that somehow I need to impress to Apple and to you, my readers, that this is important to me, and that it shouldn’t be dismissed as just data. It is a big deal. The time and energy I spent creating my book collection is a big deal, the time I’ve spent dealing with these issues is a big deal, losing my books is a big deal – to me. And it’s not because of anything I did, it’s an Apple issue – I have a right to speak up for myself. It’s part of the same conversation we had last week about setting your boundaries.

Of course, as I become aware of this feeling, I know I’m creating it. I also realize that the message I’m meant to share with you is that we all go through experiences that make us doubt ourselves, our abilities, and our values, and it’s up to us to decide how we allow those experiences to affect us.

You have the absolute birthright to spend your time any way you want, to care about whatever you want. Period. If it makes you happy, and you’re not hurting anyone else, OWN IT!

You came here to enjoy your life in whatever way you want to. Don’t let anyone define you. Live life by your own rules. Define yourself.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!