Finally - something that might persuade us to change our passwords

Image: Girls’ Hannah Horvath probably struggles with passwords too (HBO)

Next time you’re racking your brain to come up with yet another computer/social media/online shopping password, dust off your list of life goals.

Most of us view the process of devising new passwords as a necessary evil, and resort to the same tired mix of nicknames and numbers, only slightly tweaking it each time. In doing so, it seems we’re all missing a crucial opportunity to absorb positive messages with the potential to change our day, if not our whole lives.

This all sounds a bit coo-coo, but hear us out.

Mauricio Estrella, a Shanghai-based creative director, has credited his monthly computer passwords for helping him tick off a number of major life goals.

In a fascinating blog post on Medium, Estrella explains how the process began when he changed the password on his work computer to “Forgive@h3r”. He chose those words to convince himself to move on after breaking up with his ex-wife:

I had to type this statement several times a day. Each time my computer would lock. Each time my screensaver with her photo would appear. Each time I would come back from eating lunch alone. In my mind, I went with the mantra that I didn’t type a password. In my mind, I wrote “Forgive her” everyday, for one month.

That simple action changed the way I looked at my ex wife. That constant reminder that I should forgive her, led me to accept the way things happened at the end of my marriage, and embrace a new way of dealing with the depression that I was drowning into.

Seeing how effective his password-as-mantra approach had been, Estrella continued to use his life goals to guide his monthly password choices. Days after changing it to “Quitsmoking@forever”, he successfully quit smoking. Three months after using “Save4trip@Thailand”, he jetted off.

We know, we know, this all sounds very The Secret, “ask the universe and you shall receive”, etc – but the list of achievements Estrella has checked off over the past two years, thanks to his daily affirmations, is nothing to sniff at. For example, “Ask@her4date” led to him falling in love, and at the end of last month he confirmed via Twitter that “Save4@ring” had also been successful.

Estrella’s idea is so simple, and yet quite genius.

We all know it’s important to think positive/view the glass as half full/always look on the bright side of life, but sometimes it’s impossible to find a window in the day to stop and think about what’s important to us. Considering so much of our time is consumed by mindlessly typing passwords into various devices, websites and apps, it seems absurd not to spend these moments reminding ourselves of something more meaningful. Experts think so too.

“People become the words and phrases they say the most. Since you use passwords a lot, you continually say positive, helpful, uplifting words to improve your life,” psychologist Michael Mercer tells The Daily Mail.

Even if a password doesn’t help you land a leading role in the next season of Offspring, typing “smilealot1” into Facebook will bring you far more joy than “rover23” ever has.

If anybody gets lucky with the password “M3et@RyanGosling”, please let us know.

Read Mauricio Estrella’s full blog post here.