When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

So said our nation’s forefathers in the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

A couple of days ago, my laptop’s hard drive suddenly decided to declare its own independence, and crashed while I was in the middle of writing a blog post. Although I had done a partial backup of files back in mid-May, everything else I’ve done since then–including all of the freelance work I’ve done for a client I picked up at the end of May, recent photos, Flip videos, not to mention the latest revisions for my novel–gone.

I can try to have a professional data recovery company retrieve the files, but it would be costly–upwards of $500. I don’t think it’s worth it. I’ve always believed that “everything happens for a reason”, and so when it comes to all of those files that are gone, I suppose it was meant to be so.

Things happen for a reason. We can’t control these situations, but we can control how we react to them.

I choose to let go, and to move forward without looking back.