Walk Away from Your Problems
Image via Wikipedia
So I woke up today and went to check my blog stats and comments, as I usually do in the mornings, and found a foreboding white screen that said only: “Error establishing database connection.”
As I went back to school on Thursday after a wonderful vacation, I hadn’t checked the site at all for a few days, so you can imagine my surprise.
This sort of thing has happened to me before, and sometimes it just resolves itself, so I got dressed, brushed my teeth, made coffee, ate breakfast, and poured myself a mug of coffee and sat at my computer to see if the issue was resolved. It was not. So I googled it. Apparently, this is a pretty infamous problem with WordPress blogs. OK, then this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I clicked on a video tutorial, followed all the steps and…
I still get the same error screen.
I checked the time. 9:50. I have a yoga class I like to go to at 10:15, and I walk to the gym, so I like to leave at about 10:05. Normally, if something like this arises, I like to sit and zone out and obsess over tinkering with it until the problem is resolved.
But this time, something strange happened.
I thought: I really would like to go to yoga today, and if I don’t go, I’m just going to beat myself up over not going, and waste an hour trying to fix a problem that I realistically cannot do anything about.
So I sent a support ticket to JustHost, my awesome internet host provider, describing the problem and went to yoga.
It was literally the best yoga session I’ve had in a long time, and not just because I missed the last two weeks because of the holidays. I was able to focus on the poses and breathing, as well as clear my head and relax. I literally did not think about the problem that awaited me for an entire hour, and when I left, I felt myself walking a little taller and soaking up some vitamin D on my sunny walk home.
When I got home, I found an email from JustHost support saying that the problem was resolved and they fixed my database for me. Sure enough, Small Strokes was back up and running.
It was incredibly empowering to look at a problem and say to it, I need to go take care of myself for a while and I’ll deal with you when I get back. So many problems can, actually, be resolved this way. This is the same reason I believe that, sometimes, you have to go to bed angry or walk away from a problem. So many issues are resolved by just walking away, taking stock of the situation, and coming back to it later. And you should never skip caring for yourself just because there is something else that needs your attention. Chances are, it doesn’t need your attention right away.
Anyway, Small Strokes is back up and running. Sorry if you checked yesterday or today and found that the site was malfunctioning. All is back to normal now!