Written by Ken Walker

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Years ago, when my wife complained about the monitor on her desktop computer being too small, I told her to take mine.

            “I’ll go to Office Depot and get an even bigger one,” I said.

I envisioned the gargantuan display on the 23-inch screen I purchased making it easy to motor through my day, writing and editing away with the clearest vision possible.

Reality doesn’t always match daydreams.

I hated that monitor. And soon, it became nothing more than a nuisance.

The reason: more than a dozen years ago, when Microsoft announced the end of support for the XP operating system, I asked a tech-savvy friend if he could install Windows 7 on my desktop.

            “Give me a week,” he said.

It took more than three weeks. In the interim, I discovered how much more I liked working on the two-year-old laptop I had purchased from one of our grandsons.

He had installed Windows Ultimate on it, which my friend insisted was no better than the Home Premium he put on my desktop. Experience proved my friend wrong.

With Home Premium, I was constantly battling pop-up ads and messages about driver updates. With Ultimate, none of that.

That’s how the desktop became an expensive doorstop. My laptop became the easiest (and superior) way to take notes during interviews, navigate the internet, and become more productive.

For a while, I would turn on the desktop every few months so it would load the latest Windows updates. Finally, I stopped doing that.

It was so old it couldn’t handle Windows 11 when it came on the scene. And, with thumb drives and online back-up I saw no reason to keep using it. Especially when I bought a second laptop for backup and—starting in 2020—doing Zoom calls while I took notes on my main laptop.

And yet, there the monitor sat, hogging desk space and looming over my office like an unwanted intruder.

Finally, last year, an extended family member moved to town. Coming from modest circumstances, he asked if he could have my desktop. A teenager, he figured he could get it updated and have something to surf the net and play games.

That forced my hand. I contacted the grandson whom I call my tech advisor. I asked if he could format the hard drive to wipe out any information I didn’t want floating around. I also took the 23-inch monitor to his house so he could check it out.

Long story short: the desktop was so old that it wasn’t worth bothering with. And the relative decided the monitor was too big for his bedroom.

The last I heard, the computer and monitor were headed for the recycle bin at Best Buy. I didn’t really care; I was just happy they were gone.

Removing the monitor made my office feel worlds bigger. It inspired me to clean off my dusty computer table, led to the discovery of an old set of USB headphones I didn’t know I still had, and improved my overall outlook.

It even inspired me to collect the worthless computer-linked CDs that have been gathering dust for a decade and toss them too.

Editors, if you have outdated and essentially worthless computers or other equipment, work up your courage, overcome the innate procrastination gene, and get rid of it. I guarantee you will feel better when you do.

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