I lost my website a fortnight ago.  It was my fault.  I ignored an email that looked quite boring.  It was from the hosting company, referring to something I didn’t recognise and asking me to update my card details, in itself a tedious task.  I hadn’t kept a copy of the website (though I managed to retrieve bits of pieces of it).  I especially hadn’t kept copies of the blog posts.  I drafted them straight onto the site.

There are so many morals from this sorry story that I hardly know where to begin:

  • Always keep a copy of EVERYTHING
  • Always read your emails, even if they look boring
  • Always act on them or at least find out if it’s necessary
  • Always update your card details even if you might expire of tedium exposure

On the other hand, I’m wondering if these are my learnings:

  • Blog posts are very often ephemeral and of the moment so might not be worth keeping – anything important you can probably dredge up again if necessary
  • Read the emails if you can be bothered. If you miss something, the chances are that no one is going to die, or even get ill
  • Act on the emails if you fancy it. If you took up every invitation that was offered, you might end up the world’s expert in GDPR and ethical SEO, (whatever that is), but you’d barely have time for breakfast
  • It is a good idea to update your card details, if you know you want to buy something. But we could probably all do with being a little more circumspect about what we leave online.  Direct debit is convenient, but I bet business make a lot of money from us being too lazy to cancel.
  • Losing my website forced me to take another look at it, make a few changes, tidy up a couple of loose ends. I hope you like this version.

There’s another lesson, a little more profound.  I’ve been finding myself dealing with a lot of loss lately, one sort and another.  Each time it’s painful, which is the point.  If it doesn’t hurt it doesn’t really count as loss.  But each time, if you stick with it, you get through a little stronger, wiser, and sometimes happier.  This conclusion doesn’t work for a post about failing to back up a website, I know.  I’ll save the idea for another time.