Patience

Today I am learning about frustration…and patience. I opened a can of worms having something to do with wanting to change the “name” of my iPhone. Don’t even ask. 

Well, okay…I’ll answer: it began when I was borrowing Jake’s wireless earbuds. (They’re nice…from Bose.) Some little quirk in me didn’t like the thing’s little electronic voice saying it had connected to “Jake’s iPhone” and then just calling mine “iPhone”. I know. Right? How silly.

Anyway, first I couldn’t remember the exact answers to my Apple security questions to be able to go in and make such a change. I mean, I knew the answers, but not exactly how I had typed them in. There were possible variations. Jake was trying to help me, but when it came to this part, the right answer wasn’t coming. So…I played with it. I played with it over and over again until the iPhone finally shut me out of trying. And then it said there wasn’t sufficient  information to reset my security questions. 

I thought this meant I was shut out of anything I needed to do that required my Apple security information forever. (It doesn’t. It means about eight hours.)

That’s what I found out after talking to a very amiable and infinitely patient woman at Apple Support. (Her name was Elizabeth.) I was on the phone with her for maybe 20 minutes all in all, (maybe even a little more), and I talked through what was happening with her and she walked me through trying to clear it up. “Try again tomorrow,” was the final verdict. I was only shut out temporarily. I can try to reset those security questions in the morning. And she sent me an email with a case number on it (in case I need it later).

All of that, by the way, was after I had first pulled up Safari and searched Apple Support and stumbled upon a very general kind of “answer” site (all kinds of answers!) and signed up for a membership and  then talked to a gentleman named Pradip for awhile. He was very kind, and he did know techy stuff about Apple and iPhone support…but what I discovered was that I was not talking to the people I thought I was talking to at all. (A little embarrassing, but okay. I’m getting a feel for handling these things myself. I’ve had a habit of letting Jake handle the stuff that requires phone calls and research like this. I’m stretching a little. So I’m forgiving myself. The next time will be better.) The best Pradip was able to do in a case like this was to give me the number to Apple Support. (Which was what I actually wanted in the first place.) 

All this just to do a little thing like naming my device. Still, it was a good experience.

I was letting myself play with finding my own way around it, and I learned some things. Patience with myself. Patience with the process. Patience with doing one thing, and then the next, and then the next…until the answer comes. So there is a certain sense of accomplishment, even though it took awhile. Even though it wasn’t a straight route.

Every tiny thing that shows me what I can do lifts me up a little. I’m just that much stronger, and I’m just that much more competent. There’s something in my heart that just gets excited and giggles inside. “Remember that.” Remember that trial and error and mistakes are not the end of the world. Breathe. Be happy. Celebrate the little victories. Don’t negate them. Don’t belittle them. 

Every single thing that teaches me to forgive myself helps make me stronger, too. Isn’t that something? We don’t get stronger by being beaten down…or by beating ourselves down. Forgiveness has a lot of power in it. 

Update on the second day: It didn’t work. Today, I was still getting the message that there wasn’t sufficient information to reset the security questions on my iPhone. I called back. Long story short, my phone is now set up with “two factor authentication”; no more messing around with security questions. It’s funny to see how the people in Apple support seemed to be feeling around this, not quite sure what had happened, the same way I was. So, it seems as if we are all learning something.

The other thing was that both Jake and I looked around this morning for “where” there was a place to create or change the “name” of my iPhone to something other than “iPhone”. No dice. Readers, I am laughing at myself and what the universe is teaching me. If you have read this far, to the end of this saga, thanks for taking the ride with me.