Computer Meltdown

You know, everyone has their nemesis.  Mine is computers.  I’ve had my laptop for several years and I sort of expected that it would carry on for ever, that I’d never have to change it, that it was eternal… until last week. I must admit that over the past few months my computer has been a bit degenerative, getting slower and freezing without any obvious reason and then in the last couple of months it did something which completely freaked me out, the screen sort of self-imploded while I was watching a Breslev shiur. I knew it was bad news because the message on the screen told me it had recovered from a serious error. I blamed it on the new Breslev hi-tech audio visuals – well I had to blame someone. Sorry guys.  I decided to ask Hashem to fix it for me without me having to make any effort– a bit extreme really but I really didn’t want to have to deal with it.  It was ok for a few weeks and then the same thing happened this time on another site.  I experienced a feeling of trepidation when I went onto any website and gradually found myself not watching anything that might be too “dangerous”!
 
Then last Thursday my virus software wouldn’t install any updates.  My internet provider technical assistant [they’re all in Mumbai] told me not to worry, he was going to screen share and sort out the problem. After 2 hours of trying to sort the problem with me on the other phone in 30 degrees of heat – and that was in London not India – he said I’d have to go to a computer shop and get them to upgrade my memory [no, not mine, although I wouldn’t mind if someone could].  So Friday morning in a computer shop the assistant told me the computer’s quite old so he wouldn’t be able to upgrade the memory that much.  So really I’m probably looking at a new computer?  Well, at some point, he said.  I’m not an impetuous person but for some reason I decided there and then to purchase a new one.  Within 10 minutes I had purchased a computer, software and a deal to transfer all my info from my old computer to the new one – everything turned out to be at a reduced price!  [I should point out at this point that a few months’ beforehand, I had asked Hashem for a bit of financial backup and 2 days later a friend rang who was a trustee and asked me to apply to the trust for some monies.  A few weeks ago, the cheque arrived, so Hashem was one step ahead as usual.]
 
So I came home with my new computer erev Shabbat. I was told how to reactivate the internet – it was very easy, apparently.  Needless to say, I couldn’t work it out. And I still didn’t have my virus software. I decided not to do anything until Sunday when I would ring my “friends” in Mumbai but already I was starting to palpitate.
 
Since Thursday I had started to feel isolated – for the first time, I didn’t have access to my shiurim.  I didn’t really know what to do with myself. Well, I could read… for a while.  And  then what?  I know, you’re probably screaming out, what about personal prayer?  Call yourself Breslever?  But at this point I wasn’t feeling particular frum or Breslev and I realised that my emuna had taken a hop, skip and a jump out of my life. I regret to say that try as I might Shabbat wasn’t that much better, I was becoming obsessed with this computer, upset that it was surreptitiously taking over my mind, and unable to control my rising feelings of inadequacy and lack of confidence in my ability to cope. My thoughts started to turn to how I felt I couldn’t find my place, my community, here in London and that my internet had turned into my access route to all things spiritual, to Eretz Yisrael itself. And then I wondered whether it would really be any different in Israel; would I in fact find a community there. It was like someone closed a curtain and the room was very dark.  I literally felt I had been left with the sitra achera.
 
Sunday morning I looked my computer in the eye and told myself it’s just a piece of inanimate material and surely Hashem wouldn’t leave me without my spiritual connection to His palace.
 
So I rang my service provider; we got the internet reactivated – actually very easy, when you know how and she explained how to install the virus software.  Everything was going according to plan – Hashem was with me after all.  Until, that is, something flashed on the screen, which seemed to interfere with the virus software just as it was in the final stages of installation.  And ….guess what, the screen froze.  By this time I was hysterical, asking was this really worth all the investment.  To cut an already long story short after being transferred to another department, and after yet another hour on the phone, eventually we discovered that my computer was trying to install 79 updates at the same time.  Eventually everything started working normally.
 
That evening I watched a Zev Ballen shiur, still with this pervasive feeling that the screen was going to self-implode.  It didn’t.  It never was going to.  That was all in the past. And that was when I realised that I couldn’t access my emails.  They had simply disappeared.  Yet another ordeal to endure.  Was it ever going to end?  I was mentally exhausted.  I tried implementing one of Doctor Zev’s ideas as I understood it; instead of telling myself how awful this was, I decided to tell myself the opposite, how exciting it was that I had endured all these tribulations, that it was really great that I didn’t have email.  Apart from not actually believing what I was saying, I did find it quite amusing and I did actually calm down.  I also decided that I was not, under any circumstances, going to touch the computer all day Monday; it had become the “enemy” and we needed a break from each other.
 
Tuesday, I tried a technique of distancing myself from my feelings, and without too much overthinking, I took my computer back to the shop and explained the problem.  A very nice young man, Patrick, took my computer and proceeded with great efficiency and kindness, to resolve the outstanding issue. He sorted out the email, and tidied up a few other things unsolicited.  I warmed to Patrick – he seemed to understand me. Suddenly, life was worth living. Someone had opened the curtain and light poured in. Peace and harmony had returned.
 
On reflection over the past week, I realised that my need, albeit subconsciously, to be in control of events obliterated my trust in Hashem.  My perceived lack of confidence in my ability to grapple with the relatively minor tests Hashem sent me caused me to doubt that Hashem would come through for me.  I literally pushed Him away. I also hadn’t realised how spiritually isolated I felt without my computer and I felt traumatized.
 
However, I also discovered that Hashem had never abandoned me; it was just in my imagination, that really everything I went through was for the good. I discovered perseverance and the ability to overcome, I discovered I could learn new things.  I was forced to make an effort but Hashem was always in charge of the outcome. As for my spiritual isolation, maybe not having my computer for a few days made me realise that my place, b’ezrat Hashem, will be in Israel in the not too distant future.
 
In the meantime, I have a new laptop and I’m enjoying it!