ahhmoments

Have you ever had those days when you hit a brick wall? When what you are wanting to manifest seems to be on the other side of a barricade with no way around, over, or under the wall?

New as it is, I was close to shutting the doors on this blog. There are many reasons I felt like giving up on my rocket of desire to have a working blog. First, I’ve broken it three times now. For you non web techies, what I mean is I did something to WordPress, the software I use for the blog, to make it not work in some way. The first was from an update about a week after I started this blog. I’d been writing till six in the morning for a week and had some darn good posts online. So out comes this update. In WordPress you get a notice in the dashboard area where all the controls to the blog are, that “your current version is out of date. Please update to the newest.” How hard can it be? I do software updates all the time and never have issues. (Because I believe it will go smoothly and no problems will occur). Being new to blogging and to WordPress I did my first update without backing up my existing work. In fact I didn’t yet have a backup system in place. Big mistake. I lost several really good posts, not to mention the time I’d spent tweaking and adding content. I could have stopped there and gone back to my Yahoo Groups and forgotten about my desire to help others learn of the law of attraction. Instead I began again by uninstalling the software and reinstalling the newer version.

Did it work? Yes, but no one had bothered to tell me that most of the plugins I had added to the program would no longer function in the updated version. Some I liked went to the recycle bin and others were deactivated until they were updated. That could have been a brick wall if I’d let it. Instead I searched until I found replacements and along the way I found other plugins and widgets which have made the blog look, feel, and work better than ever. It was a learning experience. I learned more about the program. I found a way to do backups of both the blog databases and the web site itself. I’ve had to use the database backup and the restore really did restore the site!

There was a down side to that last crash. I was beginning to get some visitors to the site. It took me a week to get things back up. Since then I’ve only had a few hits, other than Goggle robots. So I have been searching the web, reading all I can about search engine optimization and getting traffic to a new site. This research has taken me away from writing posts. Which made me feel guilty since many of the sites I’d been reading say posting on a regular basis is one of the best things you can do. I’ve been pushing myself all this week to sit down and write, but when I’ve started I haven’t had much to say. Nothing I’d want to read anyway. I was hitting a brick wall at every turn.

Until today, when several things happened. At work I crashed the software program we use for billing. It wouldn’t even open without throwing an error message and freezing up. Statements need to go out Monday and I crash the program at 4PM on a Friday. I had to get it back in operating condition before I left for the day. I tried several things to fix it. None worked. What to do? There’s that brick wall again! I took a bit of a chance. I tried something I wasn’t sure would work. I deleted the last file I’d been working with. I reopened the program and it worked! No error message! No freeze up!

You’d think I’d have been dancing in the halls over it, but you know how I reacted? I was beating myself up for having caused the problem in the first place. I should have been giving myself pats on the back for the accomplishment of fixing it. My boss was! But not me. No, I was focusing on the fact I’d created the problem. Driving home I realized what I was doing. Replaying some old tapes in my head that I’m not good enough. Not smart enough. To a few people in my past I was never enough of something. You may have someone in your life past or present that is the same. Another brick wall. I thought I’d let go of those negative thoughts. Forgiven and forgotten. Because I can never go back and change those things. What matters today is how I feel about myself. What makes me feel good about myself so I can have a better future. So I started appreciating myself. “That was something how you made that error happen. Wasn’t it great how you fixed it so easily and fast! It’s nice to know how capable you are of fixing things when they happen with that program. You really did a nice job there. And you know that isn’t the first time you’ve performed well in that way. You really are fantastic at your job!” By the time I was home I was vibrating exceptionally good vibes.

Later I was still thinking about the whole event as I came to my computer tonight. In my email was a notice of the passing of Randy Pausch. I’ve seen his name several times in the last few days without taking notice. I clicked the link I’d received and was sent to YouTube. I spent the next hour watching a wonderfully entertaining lecture, entitled “The Last Lecture“, which the Carnegie Mellon professor gave as his last, due to his ongoing fight with cancer. This was incredible teacher. He was an even better person. I’ll add the video here at the end. He said something in this lecture which hit a cord in me and was the reason for my attracting it. He said, “Sometimes brick walls are there to test how badly you want something.”

I’ve been hitting brick walls. Some of my own building. Recently, with the things I really want I’ve found a way over the wall. I realize now, there have been times I went around the wall. I’ve let some walls stop me in my tracks. Now I understand they didn’t really stop me. They changed my direction to one which ended up much better for me. Those are the ones I went around. Other brick walls I leapt over. Even the high ones. Still others I knocked a hole in and built myself a fully functioning door. I’m quite the carpenter! There has even been a time I tore the wall down with my bare hands. What about you? Are you going to let a brick wall stop you? Or is what is on the other side worth finding a way over, under, around, or through the wall? Oh, and when you have a success by all means give yourself kudos, high fives, pats on the back, and leap with joy for it! You deserve it!