Competence and Confidence

The Lightarted Buddha Mama

I just got off the phone with India. For the third time since getting my new computer I could not open my document or picture files. The communication from the computer said,

'This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the default programs control panel'.

I've always said computers can smell fear. And although the IT guys always told me that wasn't true, you and I know it is!

At this time in life I have no intention of letting a machine get the upper hand. By learning to communicate with the computer in the same way I communicate with people I believe I can influence the course of our relationship by applying the four messages all people want to hear:

'I'm glad I'm here.
I'm glad you're here.
I care about you.
I know that I know.'

These four messages are at the core of conveying competence, confidence and caring to others. They center me so I can tackle an issue calmly and with the confidence I can find a solution and learn something new in the process.

Today, I was able to talk with the computer professional in India and work through the usual frustrations to get the solution I needed. Why? Because I knew that I knew.....each time I've been locked out of my files the computer has automatically made critical updates. I knew there was a misconnect between the version of my new computer and the version of the critical update that stopped up the system.

This time I calmly persisted with the IT professional and didn't let the language barrier get in the way. He wanted to pass me on to the 'advanced support' (which would cost money) but I questioned his supposition that it wasn't an easy fix.

Here's the fix: click on start, type in restore, choose restore computer to earlier time. My computer had indeed had a critical update on 1-12-11 and I choose to restore the computer to the time before the update. By the way, when you do this, it does not affect your documents or pictures. It restores, then reboots your computer.

Each crisis presents us with the opportunity to increase our competence and develop the confidence we can handle anything that comes up. By staying calm and focusing on the four messages, I not only restored the computer to a fully functioning machine, I restored my belief in my own abilities to be pro-active and solve computer issues on my own.