Experimentations in Obsession

On a lovely Thursday afternoon, right in the home stretch of daily-yarn-postings (Month of Love), right after uploading all my class materials and emailing all the students, after plotting out blog posts for the next week… my site disappeared.
Both my sites disappeared.
No yarn, no class materials.

It was a technical thing with my server and lots of people suffered outages and there wasn't anything I, or my beloved web ninja could do to remedy anything.

At about 1pm on what was supposed to be a very productive Thursday, I had a choice.
I could obsess and plot and work and fret and email everyone.
Or I could let it go and live my life.

Obsessing is easier.

Obsessing is natural.
We want to fix it. NOW.
We want to rack our brain for every possible solution.
We want to put the fire out.
(And if we can't put this fire out, let's find ANOTHER fire to put out).

After choosing to get up from my computer and spend the day doing non-computery stuff, it was still easier to obsess.
To check my email.
To check my sites.
To rant on Twitter.

I saw the obsession and I decided to experiment.

The premise was simple (but SO difficult!):
What would happen if I did nothing.

If I didn't go out of my way explaining it to everyone…
If I didn't rant on Twitter…
If I totally ignored everything I *could* do online…

If I walked away?

Results of Experimentation

Here's what happened: I had a great day.
A great Thursday afternoon shipping orders, knitting and reading.
A great Friday running errands (groceries, bank, the stuff I usually make Jay do alone, I tagged along. We had fun!) and reading and writing for Wednesday's class.
A great Saturday helping my mom prepare to sell her shawl pins to a local salon, reading (an entire novel) and knitting.

And then, without my watchful obsession, my sites came back on Saturday night. I simply tweeted the students who had noticed (less than 1/4 of my students even realized they couldn't get to the class materials!) and went back to binding off my shawl.

Sunday, I made a list of the stuff I wanted to do…and promptly took a nap.
I woke up refreshed, ready to work.

Here I am, feeling like I had a three day vacation, ready to fill a wholesale order, launch a new knitalong, and teach an awesome class.

You have a choice.

This week, something's going to go wrong (Don't Panic! It's expected) and you'll have a choice.
Obsession? Or living?

Obsession is easier, and lord knows I slipped into it every day, but living is funner. More fulfilling, more re-filling.