Well, I was going to die.
As William Burroughs said, a paranoid is just somebody with all the facts.
These were the facts: happily installed at Betacowork Brussels, I came in, hooked up and my Mac’ died on me. We’d shared some high and low times over seven years. But this morning she’d had enough. I plugged her in, connected to the internet, she let out a high-pitched scream, and died.
These were the facts: I was going to die because how could I deliver the work for all the new clients I’d found at Betacowork? How could I invoice all the work I’d done that month?
No work.
No invoices.
No money.
No money means no food, no rent.
No food, no roof: fact: I would die of starvation, homeless.
BUT, my Betacowork hostess that day, the beautiful Stefania, had heard the death scream of my Mac’, she came over with concern on her face. Artificial respiration, massage, kind words: nothing could save my old computer. Stefania told me I could borrow a laptop in emergencies such as this.
God bless her. It was formatted for Spanish, and the settings wouldn’t accept English. But somehow we got there. Somehow we got the invoices and the work out.
Somehow, I found myself a short time later with a brand new MacBook Pro at Betacowork. But I was still going to die. The tech’ world had radically evolved in the seven years of my old Mac’. What the hell is Pages? Why is this cursor zooming around like a mad mosquito? How do I install Word? Well, this being Betacowork, a new piece of hardware attracts the attention of people you don’t even know. People who can, and will happily, answer all these questions. My friend Gilbert calmly showed me the way out of some predicaments, saying about my new Mac’ “I see you’ve gone all posh then”.
So I wasn’t going to die after all. I could still service and invoice my new clients. I could still service and invoice my old clients, and I could still evolve in the digital age. As I’ve said before: if working at home sucks, Coworking breathes. It breathes new life into your prospects. It can also save your life. You should try it.