I try not to watch the news too much, it sets me in a bad mindset for the day, but I just happened to catch a glimpse the other morning, of the new NBN Sky Muster going live into the sky and I immediately thought:
“I am so grateful there are people out there smarter than me making this stuff happen so I can enjoy and thrive in my life in rural Australia.”
It got me into a completely different state about NBN and data and internet speeds and access and everything. Previously I had joined (and on occasion led) the tribes of rural people who complain about speeds and data and cost and download capability and access. I get it, I really do.
But on that day, the day that the satellite launched, I switched.
Only the week before I had been shredding my 2001 tax information for mulch in my veggie patch and had been remembering the ‘good old days’ of dial up and cheap phone bills (average $60) and of sitting in my make shift office in our 40ft caravan (that was also my step children’s bedroom when they visited for holidays) and turning on the modem and listening to it sing as it fired up and connected me to the world (I still don’t get how it works!).
When I moved to Lightning Ridge in 2000 (the year of the Y2k that never happened) I took on the editorship of the local newspaper, The Ridge News. I had never done anything like it before and I can tell you, we were definitely the last of the print media to remain in the non digital era.
I had to have all the film from the camera processed by early Tuesday morning to make the courier so they could get the pics to Dubbo to the editor. This meant the news week basically ended then too as there were no ‘last minute’ options, unless they went in picture-less.
I drew up my pages on a lined piece of paper showing where pics and stories went based on columns and size. I used a ruler and a pen and a calculator to figure out how many columns and rows to allow for the stories. This was faxed to the office in Dubbo; along with the stories which were also faxed and then retyped.
In my second year we got connected to the net, and had a bizarre kind of intranet where we could put stories in a folder and the team in Dubbo could access it online.
Man we thought we were cool. By the end of that year we had new a digital camera and were able to do the same with our photos, this lengthened the news week by at least 24 hours, sometimes a little longer if we stretched it.
I definitely didn’t have internet at home and my mobile phone was so expensive to use that I rarely used it.
My first laptop cost me $3500 and weighed heaps and, by comparison to the modern ones, was slloooooww…but I was modern and so ahead of the times in Lightning Ridge even having one!
I used to love carting it around the opalfields and sitting on top of mullock heaps tapping away to myself! I thought I was so cool.
When I left working with the paper and moved in with my then partner, now husband, we didn’t have a landline of our own. We ran a second line from his parent’s house to our house so I could freelance for papers and magazines all over Australia. I used to POST pictures and stories to them.
I paid bills and transferred money using telephone banking or by cheque in the post.
I remember getting dial up in my office and connecting with two girls from Canada that I had worked with in Alice Springs – we connected on MSN…well before the days of facebook. It felt incredible, being able to connect with them from my little abode in the bush! It was just at typing connecting, but it was instant and it was real.
I was in awe and complete marvel, but it didn’t take long for the frustration at slowness or dropping out to kick in.
Like before the day of the satellite revelation.
When I couldn’t have a million browser tabs open at once switching between the two at warp speed, I would get impatient and swear at bloody telstra or the computer or everyone.
When an upload took an age and the page crashed I was at a loss and was even known to cry in frustration…like literal tears cry!
When the Facebook feed on my phone didn’t refresh fast enough to keep me up to date with what’s happening every millisecond…I would be in a quiet passive aggressive rage.
Why?
Because I had become used to it. Because I expected it because everyone else has it. Because I compared myself to the rest of the world and what they had too. Because I have stepped into entitlement and judgement and fear.
Because: Scarcity
In 15 years the world has moved so fast. We are always, it seems striving for bigger, faster, more.
In some ways, in fact in many ways, I crave those less digitally connected days. Which I know is weird because my business model, as it stands today, relies heavily on the technology we take for granted every day.
But it just was how it was, before the digital era. Progress happened. We made do. I made time to pick up a newspaper and read it on the lawn on a Saturday afternoon. I didn’t rush as much, things happened when and how they needed to. I felt connected in a different way.
I was grateful for the new things in my life. I was grateful for advancement.
I grew up on a farm and we only got ABC until I was about 12 years old and we used to hire a video player each summer holidays so we could watch videos occasionally. It was a treat.
I have lived on a remote outback station and laughed at the frustration of never seeing he end of a Friday night movie because the generator shut down and enjoyed the transition from generated power to what the kids referred to as ’24 hour power’ and watched the change in a family dynamic as a result.
I have been able to run a business, influencing people from around the world, for more than 15 years with thanks to the evolution of technology that I haven’t had to create.
And you know what, I didn’t have to think up the internet, I just get to use it.
I didn’t have to figure out how to make all this technology work or sync or connect…someone else has done that for me.
How frickin’ amazing is that.
I understand the need to lobby for improved services, heck, I am the first to stand up for what we need, but I wonder, in all these need for speed and progress, if we have forgotten to look at ourselves.
Perhaps in this #datadrought campaign we need to also reconnect with gratitude and with worthiness.
Next week I will be connected to NBN and I know that puts me right up there in terms of privileged access.
But thanks to my new mindset, the transition will be smooth and the speeds and data increase promised will be delivered.
I am eternally grateful and will happily and willingly pay my technology bills every single time because I know I am worthy of this access.
This technology allows us to ask for more, to create a conversation that never existed, to connect with people we would never have met and to change the world.
Don’t forget that as you use twitter and facebook and blogposts on your internet (no matter how slow) to ask for change. Don’t forget to be grateful for what you have so you can attract more of that into your life.
I know I finally am and it’s made a huge difference to my internet speed (weirdly!)
The post I’m Grateful There Are Smarter People Than Me #datadrought appeared first on THE Rural Woman.
