October 30, 2019

“Oops.” – Almost anyone at one time or another

Every once in awhile I have some “free” time on my hands in the office. For one reason or another, the schedule works out where what I normally have scheduled for the week doesn't happen, thereby freeing up the time to do something else . . . like clean off my desk and/or catch up on my reading.

Today I worked on the table in my office as well as the inbox for one of my e-mail accounts. The table got cleaned off to a respectable level, and the in box got down to a grand total of 9 (NINE!!) emails, down from something like 2065.

I basically went through the list one page of 50 at a time, scanned through to see if it looked like it was anything important, and hit the mass delete button. Obviously e-mails from 2016 and 2017 were easy targets. The ones from 2018 received a little slower look, and the ones from 2019 received serious consideration as to whether or not I should keep it.

E-mails to me are a lot like the closets in a church. You don't want to examine them too closely for fear of discovering something that should have been dealt with years ago. But you also don't want to go and throw it all away without taking at least a glance at it because you “might need it someday.” I thought that I might need some of those e-mails someday.

But, really, how many e-mails from two years ago and beyond does a person really need to save?

So I screwed up my technological courage and began deleting page after page after page.

And I may have deleted one or two that I probably shouldn't have. Oops.

If you sent me an e-mail and think I've ignored you, it may be because it fell into the delete pile by mistake. Feel free to contact me again, and I'll get back to you. But I have a feeling that none of the ones that were deleted are ones that we couldn't live without.

As we move into the colder weather, take a look through your closets and identify those things that you carry with you because “you might need it someday.” Chances are you can probably live without it. Screw up your courage and donate that item to the appropriate place – clothing sites, the Re-Use Store, etc. Because sometimes it's necessary to have a planned Oops in our lives as we reach out to others.

Blessings,