When Laptops Die, Don’t Be an Asshole!

Not quite like this, but you get the idea

RIP My Friend.

So last night my laptop died. My trusty old Acer Aspire 6530, the laptop I’ve loved and taken care of for 5 long years, passed away last night around 21:30. I wrote Greeks to Geeks on it, The 7 Things and Gyaros Books One and Zero (short story coming soon). I wrote every one of the 106 posts of this blog on it’s shiny black keyboard. And now its little digital soul has ascended to computer heaven. As a writer and blogger this is about as bad as it gets, well…slight exaggeration, but it still sucks.

I’m a sad panda

So what does this mean in practical terms? Well for the next while as I beg and borrow laptop time from friends, family and anyone else I will do my best to keep up with my blogging and community responsibilities and of course my writing. But if I seem more absent than usual it’s nothing personal, I’ll just be out trying to manifest myself a new laptop!

As always though a challenge should be seen as an opportunity to practice our philosophy. We don’t study all this good, healthy stuff just for the good times. We study so that we have patience and perspective when difficulties arise. I’m surprisingly not bothered by it all. Oh I got a fright when it wouldn’t start up after trying everything I (and the internet) could think of, and I’ve fixed computers for money in the past. I know it’ll slow up my work until I sort out some kind of replacement. I know the hard drive may be damaged and I may lose some data (don’t worry, all my writing is backed up whew!).

But at the end of the day I always knew that this could happen. Computers die, it’s not the end of the world. Ultimately it was always outside of my control and so ultimately it is nothing to me. I’m still here, I’m still okay, and there will be other computers! There is no reason to despair.

Assholes Everywhere

Another thing challenging circumstances should not push us into is cruel or indecent (read asshole) behavior toward others. Which brings me to the main subject of this post. Just over 30 days ago I posted The Asshole Challenge. The objective, for those who missed it, was to not be an asshole for 30 full days. Here are the rules:

1. You must not engage in any asshole actions or activities for 30 days.

2. Even if you yourself are in a bad mood or under stress, accept it as your responsibility and do not bring others down. Work on the issue yourself or ask for genuine help with a problem.

3. Do not use the challenge as an excuse to capitulate or act the victim. You must still stand up for your needs and assert yourself when necessary. This is not about becoming passive, you still need to communicate and negotiate effectively. You just can’t be an asshole about it

This deserves to be reposted

I have now completed the challenge, and other than the very minor slip up (I counted 2 in total which I apologized for) I succeeded. Woo! Taking a minute to check my reactions to people and not letting my own grumpiness or moodiness bring others down makes a huge difference to those around me as well as myself. There’s no going back now

At the time of posting the challenge I made a list (affectionately titled “Assholes”) who I planned to call out in this post and see how they got on. These are fellow bloggers who commented that or otherwise made it known that they’d like to take the challenge. Now this list was made on my dead laptop so I can’t access it, and the only bloggers I remember on my “Assholes” list (don’t worry I was on the list too lol, I love my assholes

) were Kozo from Everyday Gurus, Georgia from Broad Blogs and Miss Four Eyes from…well Miss Four eyes.

That’s right guys, you thought I’d just forget, but nope, I made a list! So if you’d like to leave a comment with how you went with your challenge that would be awesome. Were you a little more aware of your behavior toward others? Did you hold back at all from letting loose on some unsuspecting innocent? No pressure

Things really turn out different depending on our attitudes, behaviors and reactions. Every day we have an opportunity to make things better or worse by choosing to act in certain ways. It is often that case that while being snappy can seem like a good release at the time, it almost always hurts us (and others) in the long run. Taking a minute to breath, count to ten and not sweat the small stuff always seems to result in a better outcome for everyone involved. There’s just no reason for nastiness, impatience, cruel words or other silliness.

Nap Time!

I’d also like to take this opportunity to quickly mention naps! A number of weeks ago I wrote a post about the importance of napping. I set myself a goal of napping every day. But March was crazy. I napped every day for about a week and then only managed one or two a week since then. What I noticed however is that I don’t need a nap every day. Some days I really do and in that case a nap does me the world of good, giving me the energy and enthusiasm to blast through the second part of the day. Other days I just don’t feel like napping.

All in all though I’m so glad I tried out this experiment. It’s made napping a part of my life, a really positive part too! I’d highly recommend it for anyone who can fit a nap into their schedule.

Free Book!

Finally I’d just like to mention that all today and tomorrow (the 29th and 30th of April) my latest ebook “Felling Happy Punk? Well Are Ya?!” is free to download on Amazon. Once downloaded it can be read on any computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet or of course a kindle. Go ahead and download it yourself and spread the word. The more people that download it, the higher up the free charts it goes. The higher it goes the visible it becomes and the more people that can grab it

Click Here to Get It FREE!

And that is that. I’m off now to try and put my digital life back together. I wrote this post on an Acer Aspire One, I feel like a giant! I’ll keep in touch as best I can over the next while. Hope you are all keeping well and had a great weekend!

All the best, thanks for reading

Rohan.

Related Articles:

• The Asshole Challenge
• 7 Things You Need to Know About Taking a Daily Nap

http://rohan7things.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/the-asshole-challenge/