I’m a senior in my last semester of college and decided now would be the perfect time to make an extravagant purchase of something I should’ve invested in five years ago – a laptop. I’m only a few years late to the party, but it was well worth the wait. However, my luck entailed a big headache of an experience.

Lugging around my brother’s old, heavy laptop in a train packed with people like canned sardines and walking a significant distance in the city wasn’t cutting it for my shoulders and back. I needed something reliable for the journey that could last me a significant amount of time.  

Being a journalism major, my first instinct was to scope out all of my laptop options and understand the pros and cons of each. This included not only going to every manufacturer’s website, but to read all the reviews (thank you, YouTube) of each laptop. I knew the credentials my laptop needed, which was a lot of memory within a chic, lightweight machine that was of course within my budget. 

I finally made my decision at the second store I visited, Microsoft. It was as if the laptop jumped out and asked me to buy it. The silver Dell had everything I wanted, everything but the ease of making one of my first big purchases, other than college that is.

Sometimes life doesn’t go the way we expect it to, but the importance of a balance between patience and an assertive attitude can alleviate a stressful situation. 

I wonder why things go wrong when it matters most. I bought my new, expensive Dell laptop the next day after thinking about it overnight (I’m not good at making impulsive decisions). After a long day, I got inside the car, excited about the first portable laptop I bought, but a bad feeling told me to double check the box.  

It was similar, but ultimately, it was the older version of the laptop I wanted. 

A sigh escaped my lips and with an annoyed manner, I got back up out of the car, slammed the door, and trekked back into the mall. A woman helped me swap out the computer and added another $100 to the bill since the previous, older laptop was of course cheaper.  

Finally, I could go home, relax and get the computer ready for Monday. Everything seemed fine and I loved what I bought, except for the fact that it had a malfunction when going into sleep mode, as I soon found out.  

So, the next week I went back to the Microsoft store to get the issue solved. I was almost certain some of the staff could refer to me on a first name basis at that point. Now, for real, everything was perfect and all was right with the world again, right?  

Not so much. The computer worked fine that night, but the next day it was as if nothing changed. There I was, driving back to the store, again. Four trips within one week. It didn’t go how I planned, which was with a comfortable swipe of a debit card and leave. 

My best advice to myself was that everything would work out in the end. With another trade in of the device, I was ready to be done with Microsoft altogether.

We all go through trials and tribulations and maybe they’re not the biggest issues in the greater scheme of things, and that’s okay. The essential part to remember is just that. Sometimes, taking a step back and realizing maybe the issue won’t be fixed tomorrow, next week or even next month, but it’ll get fixed nonetheless, is what drives us to get to our end goal.

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