Passwords!

“OH NO! I couldn't have messed up my password again!”

Tongue between my teeth I cautiously pecked in one single letter and number at a time, trying to glance at it before it disappeared behind the asterisk clones which made it so hard to be sure what I'd typed. It was even more difficult to count the asterisks. I'd already blown it twice and I knew real soon the online banking app would get tired of my fumbling about and declare me an invasive hacker trying to break into my own account. Then the account would be locked until i supplied documentation that I was really me.

My tortuous and anxiety filled tussle with online passwords was one of the more harrowing aspects of my daily existence in a world growing more technologically advanced every day. I'm 67 today. I wish I could simply put my eye or finger up to be scanned. Though biometric access is an option for some accounts I couldn't seem to set that up correctly or have that choice on enough accounts. I needed password and email or phone number entries for everything from my kdp and canva accounts to PayPal, Chime and even my email called Gmail. It might be a simple thing for most of you but I find navigating this terrain nightmarish.

I began trying to follow best practices and choose something unique and different for every account. I'd carefully write them down. Then I'd fat finger the keyboard or leave off a number and much like the proverbial valley of the shadow of death…I'd be engulfed in the valley of verification. Then I tossed my device on the sun-bakes dash of the car and by the time I realized it was being damaged by the hours of sun heat it was time to buy a new device. I had been intending to back everything up to the ‘clouds’ but never quite found the perfect time. I had a nice new device but none of the login information the old device remembered for me. It was a huge ordeal getting into all the accounts.

There's still days I just would prefer walking into a bank and talking with a teller to all this convenience and having the world at my fingertips. Does anyone else struggle with this?