Speed Bump Ahead

A couple of weeks ago, a small disaster affected the functioning of my business. My website literally disappeared into the clouds (sadly not the ones that store stuff) as a result of a fatally corrupted server.

For about five days, while I anxiously waited to hear if the back-up had been successful, I contemplated the loss of a huge amount of my intellectual property over the past 8-10 years. All my blogs, newsletters, recipes and other valuable content were housed there plus the fact that like most businesses, my website is how my clients find me and pretty darn crucial.

Thankfully, the back-up worked a dream and put me back on the internet map. Yet, due to some of the security settings going a bit wonky in the process, this much-awaited restoration brought some unwelcome passengers with it. I had a flood of spam emails, which were super annoying with the exception of one that stopped me in my tracks. It was from ‘Miranda’ in China and it went exactly like this.

Dear Sir,

This is Miranda from china.

Glad to know your company has the intent on purchasing speed bumps. I wonder whether we could cooperate.

If u need more infos, please contact me directly, high quality will be served.

Best regards

Miranda

The only reason I looked at this email at all was because the subject heading ‘Do you want to buy Speed Bumps?’ had me intrigued. The concept of being able to purchase entire speed bumps and the logistics of this sent me into fits of laughter let alone the thought of buying any. But you know what? I had hit my own speed bump when my website bit the dust.

The speed bumps that we experience in our day-to-day lives can obviously be a lot more serious than losing a website. It could be big problems with your family, friends, life threatening health issues, financial concerns, job insecurity, moving house, relationship breakdowns or any one of life’s stressful events. All of these and more represent speed bumps from small to monstrous. Quite often though, speed bumps in our lives are just what we need to take the first step toward real change for our physical and mental well-being. Just like the ones we drive over every day, we need to acknowledge the speed bumps in life, take a breath and slow down. It’s the perfect opportunity to take your foot off the pedal, regroup and alter the path of our well-being.