Almost all the work I do requires a pretty steady internet connection. WIthout it, I can’t check email, write emails, write code, write designs, talk to colleagues. Nothing. Of course, when you need something as much as this, it’s fun to see how people deal with not having it.
A couple of years back, in Sydney, there were a few afternoons where there was no connection from my office whatsoever. The story was completely standard. First, everyone panicked; there were still deadlines, of course. Frustration. Anger. Only after an hour or so did people relax, and say: screw it, let’s go to the pub.
What’s the key to happiness in this? To avoid the angry hours. I think this is what buddhism is all about. Accepting loss. Now, when I don’t have internet on a train, for a minute or an hour, rather than fret about it, I relax, accept it as part of the job, and read.
In the last hour I read 100 pages of a great new book by Haruki Murakami. Written a blog post. smiled. Some around me struggled, smacked their keyboards, or, who knows, maybe gave up and went to the pub.
Robert Schönberger
robert strudel schonberger dot org
