They clog your inbox and your life — emails by the heap that, in moments of guilt or fatigue, you decided you ought to answer. And now, like the three singing neighbors who just hate to see the block party end, they … will … not … go … a … way.
Not so many years ago, you stuck mail you meant to answer in that overpriced basket you had to buy at Aunt Mazie’s Longaberger house party. There the envelopes sat, often for years, untouched but also unobtrusive. Email, that’s different. The electronic detritus of your conversations stalks you relentlessly. Except for its depth in the pecking order, your oldest unanswered email looks as fresh, as compelling, as the ones that will arrive today.
Enough. Let this be your amnesty. Labor Day is the real New Year’s Day, launching the next 12-month cycle of our lives: Vacation is forgotten but for that Visa bill, school has begun, and each of us murmurs resolutions: I’ll exercise more. I’ll work smarter. I’ll get serious about (whatever).
So make this the moment you seize control of your pixelated obligations and … Delete All. This isn’t disrespectful, provided you are without discrimination in your liberty: Treat every correspondent the same. Many long ago forgot what you cannot: that you “owe” them responses. A handful, fewer than you fear, might even mention it. Shrug, apologize, explain your once-a-year purge and, if you must blame someone, blame us: “Didn’t you see that email amnesty editorial in the Tribune? Brilliant work. Changed my life.”
If the mass slaughter of emails comes uneasily to you, invoke the line that triumphant Roman generals had their servants chant, lest the generals get fat heads: “Memento mori!” or, “Remember, you will die!” True enough. How much of the intervening time do you want to waste staring, and staring, at all the missives that you just don’t want to answer? Imagine, too, the shame if your obit reports, “She is survived by a brother, Fritz, and 1,632 old emails.”
