Save... but also delete



Published in The Nation

When you work with words and your job is mostly about article-writing, the act of unconsciously pressing Ctrl and S comes to you naturally. In fact, one of the first things you learn in the field is to save the document after each new sentence. And when you are battling writer’s block, you tend to save the document after each word.

Saving is important, whether you are saving a document, money, or someone’s life. More often than not, we regret not saving before it’s too late. Imagine you are typing a long document. It could be something personal, may be about a recent breakup, epiphany or experience. You keep typing and pouring your heart out to this Word document. And then suddenly the power goes off and you realize you’ve lost everything. You regret not saving the document. Save but also delete.

If you are lucky, you will find everything or most of what you typed saved by Word itself. However, there’s a chance the most important paragraph is lost somewhere, and you feel something valuable has been stolen from you. When this keeps happening, you learn to save without fail. In fact, there will be times when you save the document even when no changes have been made.

While it’s important to save, have you taken a look at everything you have saved? We often save all our thoughts and memories online.

Blogs are treated like diaries by some. It’s not merely a place to share opinions or talk about current events, but a place to store one’s deepest thoughts and experiences. A blog is sacred and precious. So, imagine what would it be like to find that the blog you maintained for six long years has been deleted?

So no matter how careful you are and make sure your posts are saved, a mistake could be made and you may have everything you ever honestly wrote deleted. All those words could be erased or wiped from the face of the Earth. When this happens, you feel crushed. You feel robbed. You feel empty.

However, as time goes by, you realize something important; that none of it matters.

At some point of your life, you need to clear all the shelves and need to wipe away the dust too. It’s not as dramatic as turning over a new leaf or having a new beginning. It’s the same you, the same life you lived but you delete or erase the past. You let go of all those dreams and nightmares from the past.

This could be something huge like moving on from certain people and situations. However, it could be a simple deletion of posts, (Facebook) friends or messages. Go through your contact list. Why do you still have your ex’s number saved? Is it because you still talk to him or because you are still waiting for him to call? If it’s because of the second reason, maybe it’s time to delete the contact. And once you do it, you feel relieved.

However, not everything that is saved should be deleted. And not everything that is saved can be deleted. Further, this act of getting rid of things need not be a painful experience.

Think of a jar you fill with coins to collect money to buy the books you want or for the holiday you badly need. Emptying your savings for something you need and deserve isn’t as bad as deleting all the messages that keep haunting you. So not all savings that are gotten rid of are bad or sad. Sometimes, it’s a good thing.

Knowing this is important in life. It’s important to save, but it’s also important to delete.

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