Beware of Your Own Stupidity!

It does sound like an obvious, trivial, and even unnecessary thing to say, doesn't it? Well, that's something I used to think. Then, I realized that the stupidest thing you can possibly do is to believe that you'll never do a stupid thing. Here are my 3 favorite crown jewels to make you treat this problem the right way.

Example #1

I'm a proud owner of a 12-year-old Hyundai Santa Fe. There's nothing special about that car, except for the fact that my words bought it. I also like a poetic expression that my car runs on words I write instead of petrol. Unfortunately, my poeticism is to blame for my lack of some useful technical knowledge about cars at the basic level, at least. So, one fine day, my wife tried to open the door before I unlocked the car. The alarm went on, which was quite a shock, because I thought my car didn't have one. In addition, the car was blocked and it wouldn't start. I was already on the phone talking to a mechanic, who told me that he wouldn't bother saying a hello to my car for less than $100 per hour. Plus, an additional charge because he had to come to me and not the other way around. In a total desperation, I was walking around the car trying to figure out what to do with all that noise and flashing lights. Then I saw a sticker on my car door glass. It said something like "Hyundai Security System." I bought a car and I forgot to ask whether or not it has a fabric alarm. I asked Google what to do. It turns out you have to press the unlock button twice and your alarm will give you a break. We were back to normal and I just couldn't stop looking at the life-saving sticker. I must have opened that door a thousand times, and yet not once I didn't ask myself, what's that sticker doing there. I was lucky to get away with a ruined day instead of a demolished wallet.

Example #2

I ordered a nice looking Asus Vivo something 2-in-1 laptop online. I thought it was a great idea to pay once for two devices a laptop and a tablet. This device was something you call a "transformers." You press a button, you move the keyboard, and you get a fully functional tablet. The price was good, if you order online. I didn't bother to look for info about the OS. It turned out it uses some special Windows, you need if you want to use two devices at the same time. I couldn't install Grammarly. I couldn't use Dropbox. I couldn't this and that. So, I was hugely disappointed with my choice. I also realized this device didn't have an HDMI port and a SIM card slot. I decided to sell it, but I couldn't get a fair price. It was already treated as a used thing, although it was officially old only a couple of months. So, my only option was to trade it. I found a guy who was willing to trade it for a used Xbox 360 gaming console. My goal was to try finding something that would my kids enjoy using, at least. So, the day came to trade our devices. My kids were already playing games, when the guy who was checking my laptop shared some of his findings with me. It turned out that this device had both port and slot, I couldn't find. All you had to do was to read the manual. This guy was thrilled with the device, he got as a result of our trade. On the other side, I had some second thoughts about my decision, but I didn't want to spoil my kids' fun and above all my promise given to this guy. After all, this wasn't a bad trade.

Example #3

I'm writing my story on my favorite laptop. We had a great start, but then Windows 10 update ruined it. Something went wrong and I start receiving some warning about a driver related issue. The trouble was that in the middle of my work, the laptop would suddenly restart itself with no warning. Sometimes it could happen 5 times in a day or only once in a week. That isn't the only computer in my home, but having in mind that its battery lasts forever 4+ hours, or even more, including its small size, this was a huge problem for me. I just didn't want to give up on it. So, I tried everything and anything. I got back to the previous OS version. Nothing. I updated it again. Nothing. I paid more than once to fix it. Nothing. I even paid for some online driver fixing tools. Nothing. I was thinking about giving it away as a gift to some of my friends or cousins. How? It's not working properly. One of my friends suggested me to try Linux. I didn't like the idea. Who's using Linux these days? If it's not popular, then it's not good. Right? After a couple of months of endless torture and a couple of nervous breakdowns included, I had no other choice than to give Linux a try. Guess what, all of my computers run on Linux now.

What all of these stories have in common? That's obvious, a stupid guy as the main character. I read somewhere that the first thing you need to do in healing yourself is that you realize and admit that you have a problem. I think that the smartest thing for me to do recently was to pay some extra attention to my stupidity. So far, so good.