Photo Source: Brittany Bush
It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950)
Only thing predictable about life that it is unpredictable
We can plan for our lives, when to get married, when to have kids and when to retire. Planning is great and having back up planning is better, as life always does not go according to our plans. I am sure mine does not and I am sure it is true for all of you as well.
Last Friday (Jan 21st), something happened and my whole Heart and Mind content from hosting site and everything got deleted and I could not see anything when viewing my site. I still am not sure what caused the whole database for heart and mind to be deleted but we called Bluehost, my hosting company and they have complimentary data back up and my content and site were back up in about 2 hours.
I lost some of my comments, my replies and any changes and updates I made in last 5 days though. So, if you made any comments in last few days before Jan 22nd, it might be lost with my own replies and changes. I suppose at least most of the content is back up.
It is scary to lose everything you have written in 18 months, all of your hard work going nowhere. While I hope none of you have to go through thing like that but if you face life’s set back, here are a few lessons I learned might help you through it.
Tips to handle Life’s Setbacks
1. Have a realistic plan for life. That means setting goals that are reasonable and achievable. Small goals and short terms goals are as important as long term and bigger goals. Bigger goals can be broken down in chunks for easier plan.
2. It is good idea to have back up plan to fall back on. Let’s face it, life does not happen always as we plan and as we like. Having a realistic plan sure helps but having a back up plan is sure way to keep sanity and something to fall back on when need arises.
3. Take a break when something drastic happens, do not make a decision when your mind is in tension. When we are panicking, we are not going to make best decisions in life so wait until our mind is clear and we are thinking logically to make life changing decisions as we will bound to make choices out of emotions and not logic. Mind is like a parachute, it only works when it is open.
4. Take care of your self when things are down. Taking care of ourselves is last thing in our mind, when we are looking for solution quickly but unless we are well, we will not be able to help ourselves or anyone else in that matter. Like in plane emergency situation they say to put a oxygen mask on yourself before putting on your children, you can not save anyone unless you save your self first.
5. Have support of people and other hired expert when we do not know the answer. I am not tech savvy, so I had to ask Bluehost people to suggest what to do. You can do that with any situation when we are not sure about what to do. In other situation, such as plumbing or electric sparks in house is not the time to save money and fix it yourself (unless you already know how to do it).
6. When life give you a problem, think of what is the worse that can happen because of it? Then try to improve upon the situation. It is not all bad. In my case, I would have lost everything as I had not done back up, but I could always start again from zero again and thinking of that and improving the situation from it made it much easier for me.
7. There are always worse situation and people are in worst situation then you are, now that may not change the situation at the hand but it sure puts things in perspective. There are a few things that can happen to any of us, regardless of age, gender, nationality, race or how much or how little money or things you have, all of us are equal when disaster strikes. We all go through same things, it is how we perceive and act during the time that makes difference.
We all wish life can be rosy and peachy always for everyone, including ourselves. When things are going great enjoy it and when things are down, improve upon the situation slowly. Life is all about learning new things.
I hope using this 7 tips, your life during stressful event can be stress free as much as possible. Until we know and learn how to stop disasters in our life, next best thing we can do is to minimize the damage and still live the life we meant to live.
Zengirl
Note: I have lost all contents including readers comments in my database meltdown between Jan 17-Jan 21. I apologize for comments and content being lost, if you like you can please leave comments again. And be safe and please back up your data always.
Thanks for these great tips for surviving stress, which is unfortunately something that we all have! Another great post, Zengirl! Glad to hear you survived your database meltdown stress 😉
Most of life setbacks are not permanent, and are not really serious problems if we took a more objective view. For instance, getting fired is not the end of the world – we can always get another job. So is losing a business partner, or a failed business, or dropping out of school, or committing a sin. Real problems are: having a terminal illness, or fighting for survival. Sometimes we’re too serious about life, and that causes more anxiety and stress than necessary when we suffer “setbacks”
Hi Preeti,
These seven points are great! Thank you for sharing. May I add another point?
“When in a setback, remember you had other setbacks before, and you are still alive!”
When we remember all the problems we have faced in our lives and we are still here and able to smile, we can realize that usually, no matter how big a problem might look, we can go through it and find the other side. When we do this, we realize that big problems are not so big most of the times.
Raul
Hi Raul,
Yes of course, you may always add your input here anytime. I really like this;
“When in a setback, remember you had other setbacks before, and you are still alive!”
Yes, we have survived many setbacks somehow and we will do this one too. The problem happens when too many setbacks seems to come to you once but keeping positive attitude sure helps. Thank you for adding this valuable input.
Henway,
Yes, when we have passed the setback and we look back with more objective view. Actually sometimes getting fired or losing a job may open up a new and better opportunity sometimes, only if we looked. When we are facing these life’s little and not so little setbacks, it seems the biggest thing to us, if we keep the courage and foucs, we may pull through. Good points.
Bestu,
Yes, we all face something or the other as a human being. Database meltdown was bit hard but I survived. I need to work on getting an external hard drive and back up my heart and mind’s file there as it is scary to lose everything I had written. I usually write straight in to a post and edit there too. *phew*, life sometimes comes to you fast.
Hi Preeti,
I have always enjoyed saying that change is the only constant in life. Unless we are prepared, we may find ourselves unready to handle the challenges that come our way.
Interestingly, my website also got hacked last week. I could not log in and I thought that I had lost everything I had written. Well, I had backed up the stuff and I had soft copies in my laptop, but even so, it was a hassle. In the past, I would have panicked, but this time round I focused on what I had to do. It must be all the things I have been writing at Han of Harmony which has helped me to manage crisises in a calm and composed manner. I also welcomed it as much needed learning experience about security.
You have made great points about how to handle setbacks in life. I just want to add that we should focus on the solutions and not the problem when we face difficulties. When the problem happened, I knew what I had to do and whom to get help from; my hosting company. And from there, I focused on doing whatever was necessary to get my website back.
Thank you for sharing this article. 🙂
Irving the Vizier
Sorry to hear about the stress you went through about your site. I can imagine how scary it was. Luckily your host had a backup. Good for you! Well, Thank you for sharing your experience and the moral lessons you derived from it.
Great tips, Preeti. When we react to a stressful situation from impulsive thought patterns or reactive tendencies, it drains our creative energy and we are unable to find a solution. Suspending our judgment always leaves us with a receptive mind; it gets us out of your own way so that we may drop useless reactions for valuable insights.
Great tips. When we are stressed I think a great way to relieve this is to meditate or even take a nap. A good nap does a lot for many and meditation does great also. As long we make sure our mind are clear, happy and active then we can’t lose.
Jonathan,
Meditation is one of the good way to find focus and clarity. I find that even mini meditation can do wonder when time is an issue. Thanks for chiming in.
Rob,
Thanks, I have come to realize, I do better in stressful situation when my own emotions are not involved, when my database went down, my emotions and hard work of writing posts were involved but keeping “what is the worst can happen?” and I tried to improve upon it helped the situation a little bit. Every day is small improvement!
Anne,
Yes, it was bit scary as I did not have a back up of my own (I am still trying to find a way to back up my work here), so I would have lost everything. It was bit scary and luckily it worked out this time but it may not in future so having a back up plan a, b and c sometimes helps. Thanks for your comment.
Irving,
I am so sorry to hear that you website got hacked, I am sure it must have been scary. You are wise to have a soft copy on your laptop, I am still working on mine. Life sometimes gives us lot of lemon and sometimes we need to make lemonade and sometimes just do something else. I am so happy that you were also able to work out the data hack problem and got your site back.
Good lessons to be learned here. Thank you for sharing your wisdom as I have to still learn to back up my database here.
Hi ZenGirl,
Nice tips about planning in our daily life. I always make a backup of all my blogs on my own hard disk and once in a month on CDs.
I am feeling regret on the loss of your content. Be more careful in future.
Nazim,
I think you are very wise to have a backup, I am still working on mine, I have partially done before we got sick. I will try to be more careful. Thanks for the concern.
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