If you haven’t experienced a shut down due to a failed upgrade attempt, just wait. It’s happened to me so many times I barely even notice it anymore. But I remember the first couple of times the blogging stopped… and it wasn’t a pretty sight.
When you’re building an online business you’ll inevitably be interacting with other websites. Google AdSense, Facebook, Squidoo, Fiverr, WordPress, Google Analytics, your favorite forums, your email provider – the list goes on and on. All of these sites – even your own blog – have one thing in common: They all require occasional programming updates.
And here’s something else that’s inevitable: Those updates are going to occur just when you need those sites the most. At the very least, you’ll be inconvenienced for an hour. In the case of a Fiverr.com update fiasco that occurred last year, users were inconvenienced for months.
When you’re in the thick of it, that site crashing just when you need it the most is the most devastating thing that could happen to your business. “What do you mean I can’t access AdSense right now? I’m launching a new blog today and life as we know it will end if I have to launch without those ad blocks!”
We rant and rave and jump up and down, demanding to speak to supervisors and then the supervisor’s supervisor, and all the while our blood pressure is shooting through the roof and to any outsider we sound like a raving lunatic.
It’s at times like these, those times when the blogging comes to an abrupt, unplanned stop, that I like to think to myself: What would Ma and Pa Ingalls do in this situation?
Believe me, I understand. When you’re in the thick of it, I know it sounds trite to remind yourself that life existed before blogs came on the scene and it will continue to do so until, well, who knows when. But my point is this: When the blogging stops, life still goes on. Maybe this is a sign that you need to stop, too, and start enjoying it.
As a Type-A personality myself I sympathize. After all, what is life without your blog? It’s your sole reason for being. If you can’t be building your business then life has no meaning. And the very idea that you can’t control every single moment of your day is just, well, let’s just say it’s almost too dreadful to imagine and just leave it at that.
I really do like to look toward Ma and Pa Ingalls for guidance when things beyond my control take a turn for the worse. They traveled hundreds of miles across uncharted territory in a rickety wagon pulled by a decrepit old horse. They had no GPS to guide them, no cell phones so they could contact the nearest Chamber of Commerce and ask for directions, and no Google Maps they could use a last resort.
Ma Ingalls gave birth to three (or was it four?) children, in her own home, in a straw-stuffed mattress, with no fancy scanners or pain relievers. Pa Ingalls provided for his growing following the back-end of a horse as he manually plowed and harvested his crops and in his “spare” time he worked in a sawmill, loading and unloading lumber and running it through a saw that makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre look like a fairytale.
For most of their lives Ma and Pa Ingalls had no electricity, no running water, no indoor bathroom, very little food, no Christmas presents and hardly any privacy, yet they continued to love and cherish their family and their home was filled with laughter and love.
And here you are whining because you can’t get a freakin’ block of AdSense for you brand new blog which has no traffic yet, anyway, so who would click on those ads if you did have them? You should be ashamed of yourself!
Look, it’s going to happen and the first few times the blogging stops it’s going to throw you into a tailspin. Take a deep breath and look around. There are other things you could be doing:
- Write an extra blog post and get ahead of your posting schedule for a change
- Rework your Things-To-Do list to adjust for this unplanned downtime
- Start working on that new ebook you’ve been planning
- Start researching that new blog you’ve been planning
- Go make some new connections on Twitter and Facebook
- Go join a new social network and get started connecting
You’re just blinded by panic right now so relax. The list of blog-related things you could be doing is endless. Or, maybe you should take this as a sign. Maybe it’s time to look to Ma and Pa Ingalls like I do and spend an extra hour or two with your family.