When a new OS comes out for an Apple product, I like to be one of the first to download it and see what it offers. To my surprise, when I went to do an update a few days ago, I received an error message stating I didn’t have enough space. Another 35G (yes, Apple’s OSs are huge), is needed to perform the update.
Admittedly, I have been procrastinating cleaning up my hard drive and deleting some of my 42,000 photos on my devices. Yes, 42K, which, because there are so many, I’ve kind of put it off as I don’t relish having to go through them, not because there are so many, but because it means I will actually have to delete some of them. The blessing, and the curse, of digital media is one can take many photos, but don’t cull them very often.
It is the same with my digital files. I do tend to keep them as well since I usually have very large hard drives. However, when I last purchased a new laptop, I kept the hard drive capacity down a bit from my last one since I had iCloud storage. Probably if I didn’t have so many duplicates of documents from the many transfers to new computers over the years, and done my clean-up then, I wouldn’t be in this predicament today.
Over the last two days, I’ve made time to start. I’ve deleted about 200 pictures, not too many, but it is a start. It has also been nice though, as I’ve gotten to go down a bit of memory lane, some bad, mostly good.
The same has been the case for my digital files. They too have been a walk down memory lane. I’ve started with my old work files. As I’ve opened files from my first days as a principal, I’ve been able to reflect on many of the good things I was able to accomplish in that role at both schools in which I served, along with how much I learned from Jude as Assistant Principal with her.
My parting advice is, don’t let your photo files get to be so large, your digital files too old, but as you go through files, take a moment to appreciate how far you’ve come over the years as a professional, a photographer, and a parent. We don’t always get to see, or think about, from whence we came, to whither we are.
As we begin 2021, take a moment to go through your past “baggage” to let it go. Keep the good stuff, toss all the rest.
Happy cleaning!
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 