2 days after I returned- with tons of photos and videos from the trip, my phone randomly decided to break down on me. Everything I had on my phone was gone. Besides for the memories I had from my trip, I also had another 300 or so photos and videos from the year and a half that I had my phone. I had 30 or so notes of favorite recipes, blog posts, song lyrics... tons of information.
I spent the entire next day (Friday) at the Apple store and then AT&T, where I finally accepted the fact that I would have to swap my useless phone for a brand new one. While some people would be ecstatic about getting a new phone, I was disappointed that I had lost so much information :(
To make matters worse, none of my information was backed up on iCloud! The entire time, I thought I had been backing up information to iCloud, but apparently none of it was. Let me just tell you- the day I got my new phone, I called Apple support and set up my iCloud! If there is anything you do today, make sure you back up everything on your devices if you haven't already.
One of the most upsetting things was that I had taken a ton of photos which I was going to use for my blog posts. I was so excited about having photos of other places besides for my typical. All of them were gone- besides for the ones I had on Snapchat.
I was really frustrated about all this. The entire morning of not having my phone, I was in a crummy mood and not being thoughtful of everyone else around me. I was complaining and making it everyone else's problem.
As I was driving later that day with my mom and sister, and my mom said, "It must be so frustrating," I decided to stop being so negative about it. It obviously isn't the end of the world not having your phone. It's not the most important thing. I responded to her, saying, "You know, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah, there were a lot of things on there that I would have liked to keep, but it's more about the experience anyway." Being a control freak (well, at least I'm trying to work on not being so much) this isn't always an easy mindset for me to have.
However, once I said this (and with certainty too)- I guess it was sort of like a switch inside me- I felt like I had owned that which I initially resisted. It was almost as if that which I did not want to occur, or that I couldn't accept, was all of a sudden a decision that I got to make. At the end of it all, I got to make the decision to not allow it to take over my mind and mood.
I realized that so many times in life, I allow things to get in my way. I allow minor occurrences or situations to make me upset or believe that I can act negative (when really I am acting entitled). This is only going to hurt me in the end. The phone and everything on it are gone, and I am the one left with needing to handle the aftermath. However, I still do have a choice that I can make. I still can decide to own the decision- even if doing so isn't intuitive at first . . . because at the end of the day the way I respond to the situation is what really matters. If I decide to let it be a big deal, then it sure as hell will be. If I decide to accept it and make the most of it, then things will work out at least better than they would have otherwise.
Main points: Stay positive. Accept acceptance. Focus on the decisions that you can make.
Oh, and by the way, I have absolutely no idea how but half of the photos that were on my dead phone somehow appeared on my new phone. Those photos were not on my iCloud, so I do not know how they transferred over.
I guess being positive can work its ways with the universe??
Give it a try- positivity will work its magic for you too.