A hard drive full of promises, and one I can no longer open.
Somewhere in one of my posts, there's a sentence referring to having a hard drive full of 'shiny objects'. It's true, I was a serial 'shinyobjector', and that has nothing to do with being a 'conscientious objector'.
As you're reading this, you might be questioning your own title, probably debating or denying the fact that every time the next shiny thing crosses your path, you're like a magpie and just can't help yourself.
Now, if I wanted this post to turn into a three-thousand-word essay, I'd step into the muddy pool of 'why do I keep buying them?'. I'll keep my answer short; you may want to debate it further.
The truth is hope, simple as. Each time you see something that has even the remotest chance of being your ticket out of wherever you are, you buy it. Hey, it's only a few bucks/pounds, and maybe you won't buy any of the add-ons, the unlimited version, or the one that unlocks the secret traffic source.
Or, maybe you will, and forget the fact that the sales page told you that for the princely sum of nine dollars, you could have it all, change your life and live the elusive 'laptop lifestyle'.
There's no shame here; we have to go through that stage. Without it, we'd be the luckiest people on earth, because the very first thing we bought into would have been the one. If that is the case, I have nothing but a deep sense of genuine happiness for your incredible turn of fortune.
Let's get back to the reason for the title. As I said in whatever post I wrote, I have a hard drive full of promises, none of which have ever come through. Each and every time I bought one, I had the same feeling of excitement. This was it, this was the one.
That feeling was quickly followed by the sinking feeling of disappointment. Another broken promise, another dream dashed. We cope with it, take it in our stride, say 'never again', knowing that's a lie. It's just life, and it's no one's fault but our own. Move on.
Anyway, today I was looking through a folder for one thing and then spotted another folder, "C Drive Overspill 14012025". Curious as to what I had put on there, I opened it up.
Oh my, there were over thirty folders and at least two-thirds were shiny. All bought and paid for: $5 Funnels, Affiliate AI, AI Micro Products, and on and on and on. These weren't even on the previously mentioned hard drive; these were extra. All told, probably over $500 worth, and that's a low-end estimate.
Still, I was curious. Some of what I was looking at might actually have been useful. What if there's something in there that I might be able to resurrect?
I opened one of the folders to find three shortcut links to 'Asset Package', 'Main Course' and 'Resources'. Now I'm fully invested.
The first link took me to a welcome page. My heart soared, then a pop-up appeared with a message that burst my balloon.
"Your page? Unpause your account to remove this banner."
My account? I mean, I know I had one, but that shouldn't affect what I was looking at; that's someone else's account that's paused. The veil lifted. They no longer had an active account. The platform they used to host the content was on pause.
That means the programme I bought and paid for, that was mine, was no longer accessible. Now, deeper thinking took me back to how I used to work with these types of programmes. I would go through every page and, wherever possible, download it, file it and then do nothing. Honestly, I would spend an hour downloading every last piece, setting up all the separate folders, and then do nothing.
So, on the bright side, there might be another folder somewhere in my filing labyrinth that has all of the downloads, but for now, I had nothing, zip. Look, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal, but in my book, it was wrong.
It wasn't a subscription. That, I could understand. Even if it was on some old version of cloud storage that I stopped using years ago, meh, I could probably deal with that. This, however, irked me. It made me want to email the platform, but what are they going to say? Of course, sir, you can have access to your course; just let me open up that paused account for you, let me know when you've downloaded everything, and I'll close it back up.
Lesson learned. First, if you buy something with the intention of using it, use it. Don't put it to one side and say to yourself, "one day" or "I'll do it later". Do it now. Something about whatever it was appealed to you. Cliché alert: seize the moment, carpe diem. I'll leave it at that. Last word: "It's Not Yours Until You Make It Yours", so make it yours today, now.