About two weeks ago my dedicated virtual server (if you don’t know, you don’t need to know) started going weird. Newsletters disappeared into the ether and there was no way to tell who, if anyone, actually received them. The shopping cart developed a split personality. And Shaboom County started playing hide and seek with members.
In short, key systems in my mostly online business failed. And two weeks is an eon in Internet time, so I’m a wee bit concerned.
But I haven’t freaked out.
Now I’m not saying I won’t lose my cool eventually, but for now I’m more or less okay. For one thing, I have a really good team of techs working with my Web host to figure out what the heck is going wrong. For another, there’s not a darn thing other than letting them do their work that I can do about it. And finally, as Maggie, the office angel, says, my clients and readers are really, really nice people.
I’m sharing this because self-employment is full of crises, and we don’t always have a whole heap of control over resolving them. If we aren’t attentive, we can fall into the trap of freaking out because it seems like we should. But that’s just not so. Nothing is improved by freaking, and a whole lot goes better without it.
Now if you are freaking out, that’s cool. No need to heap insult on injury. And if you can find a moment in which to breathe, do that. Then ask yourself if it could be okay to accept what’s going on and let go.
To freak or not to freak? How to keep your cool when sh*t happens
