It was an ordinary evening, and I was busy with my ordinary routine. I needed to make a document on my iCloud drive, but my iCloud drive was full. I could have easily used a document on any other platform, but I wanted to make a new document on iCloud, only because I liked the template of the documents available on Apple's iCloud. If there was no possibility to use the pre-made template, I would have made a similar template myself, which could potentially consume a lot of time. I was unable to create a new document on iCloud since my iCloud drive was full. Although it was not urgent, and I could have taken things slowly, but I deleted the backup documents from my iCloud to get some free space on it. And the deleted data was not recoverable. Later, I noticed that while deleting the backup data, it also deleted some of the photographs that I had on my phone. I regretted this. Because those were the photos that I had taken while I was on a trip. This is one thing that I still think about days later. How has it changed my life? I pledged to myself to get more organized so that I don't have to take any radical steps like deleting the backups.

 

The photos that got deleted were from a trip that I had gone on alone for the first time, which means it will not be as easy to recreate a similar scenario. Those photos or any of the backup data is not recoverable, which means I cannot look at those photos again, show them to someone else, or have them as a memory for myself in the years to come. I like to document my life through photos. Photos can be of little value. Though it might seem odd that I'm rambling about photos. But since the advent of digital technology, photos are the new way to secure and share memories. And a photo speaks a thousand words. All the while, after knowing that I had accidentally deleted some of my photos with the backup, I started thinking, how could I be so clumsy? But it only encourages me to seriously review my organization. This tiny mistake has only triggered me to look at all the digital disorganization that I have and sort it out for good.

 

There were also some interesting video snippets of the place I visited, which got deleted along with the photos. I hadn't even shared the videos on social media. I only got to share a few photos. I used to take the availability and access of photos and videos for granted or did not use to pay much attention to them, as they are always securely stored in the phone. Even though they might be of little value, they still have a place on your hard disk. It's important to give everything its right place, no matter how small.

 

Thinking rationally, it is not a monetary loss. It is data loss. We click pictures to share with others or to keep them for ourselves as memories. But my mind does not want to think rationally when it comes to this tiny mistake. This mistake wants to haunt me, and it is only pushing me to get more organized with the data that I have. I am not seriously upset or angry at myself for this tiny mistake. But it is still taking some thinking space in my waking life. I wish I hadn't pressed the delete button. I wish I had more space on my iCloud drive. And I also wish, if I could only recover my photos.

 

Thinking of this tiny mistake that I deleted my photos from my iCloud drive, I haven't even done this for the first time. This is the second incident of deleting photos. The first time I directly deleted the photos on my phone was directly from my phone. But the root cause was the same both times. I was running out of space, and I wanted to click new photos. I could not recover those photos. There are some places that we visit only once in life. And we want to keep memories from that place or just to prove that you have been there. And I think it could have been that case. Since it was a place that I cannot imagine visiting again, it does not imply that it was a place not worth visiting, so I have lost the living proof of the trip. But I still have the museum tickets and a few souvenirs that I bought from there.

 

I still have to come to terms with this avoidable tiny mistake. Instead of this mistake shaping my life, it has rather deleted a part of my life, at least in photos. But this can shape my life to get more organized with photos and data, which I have all over the place—that one also needs to think about sorting and storing the photos after clicking. Since I don't want to repeat this tiny mistake the third time, I will take the steps to organize my iCloud drive. Though deleting the backup data was a fast solution to the problem at hand, it only led to this tiny mistake of undesirably deleting supplementary data and eventually to me writing this account on the prompt.