How a Hacker brought me closer to Enlightenment
The past two weeks have been super busy both professionally and personally, and in the middle of it all I got a computer virus on my laptop. It was the last thing I needed — on top of a fully booked client schedule, my truck had broken down, my printer died, and my phone shattered. All very important things I need to run my business, and technology was definitely not being my friend.
So after 12 hours of staring at the screen, 4 antivirus downloads, and countless (but very creative) swear words, I was back in business. YAY!
I went back to what I was previously working on — adding website creation for new organizers and small businesses to the list of services on my website, when BAM! My website was hacked. All I could think was how could I possibly offer this service to others when my own site was vulnerable? Sigh…
So I dug in to try to fix it. After another 12 hours of stripping useless hacker code out of my website, I found a text file on my server I didn’t recognize. I opened it, and all it said was, “Silence is golden.”
Silence is golden???
Are you KIDDING me????
Needless to say, I was very angry, and not at all silent about it [insert more creative swear words here]. My already scarce downtime had been wasted on this, and on top of the other expenses I had been hit with that week, I was now going to have to spend my hard earned money on a company to finish cleaning up my website. All because some bored little hacker had nothing better to do than embed some silly code on my site. What was the point???
But, in an effort to find the positive in every negative situation and keep some perspective that stress is only temporary, one of my New Years’ resolutions was to learn how to meditate. And after the week I’d just had, I sure needed it.
So I found a quiet spot, took a few deep breaths, and meditated. And in those quiet moments, a memory floated up of my good friend who attended a workshop where no one was allowed to speak for 6 hours. Although she said it was difficult at first, by the end of the workshop, the quiet had forced her to reflect on her daily life and she emerged with a strong sense of clarity; that she had been spending way too much effort on things that weren’t her true priorities, and they were sucking the life out of her. So when she returned home, she began “cutting the chaff” and saying “no” to the things that drained her.
Saying “no” to things that don’t help you accomplish your ultimate goals in life is a lesson I’d already been coaching my clients on for years. And my friend’s silence, although forced at first, gave her the much needed opportunity to organize her thoughts and priorites, so she could reorganize her life.
Then it hit me…in my silence, thinking about how her silence helped her get organized, I had found my positive in this negative situation and I was no longer angry. The hacker was right — silence IS golden.




















