358. Just Unsubscribe

I cleaned up my email inbox this week. It just dawned on me, my inbox was full of emails I didn’t need to read. Funny thing is, I've been trying hard to organize these emails while all I had to do was to unsubscribe from them. It took me about an hour to finish.

After that, I also searched all newsletters and promotional emails by their name and mass deleted them, so I can search my important emails better. Most emails were from Christian resources and Christian leaders I followed. There were so many emails that I subscribed to, and I wondered why I allowed this to happen.

Then I realized it was my desire for “more”, out of good intention to stay up-to-date. I feared missing out on new critical information. But many emails ended up making me aware of ideas and deals I did not need to know and only ended up increasing my desire for more. Again, these were mostly ministry resources that are good for me. Looking through the unread emails, I realized I didn’t miss out much. I also realized I can always access them when I actually need them by going to their site.

After going through all these emails, I was reminded that a little desire for “more” cascades into many other decisions that we regret later. Because we desire “a little more”, we allow non-urgent things to seep into our attention, eventually causing distraction, overload, and wasted effort. The enemy to simplicity is not complexity, but these three “Just”: “Just a little more”, “Just in case”, “Just this time”. It takes a bit of courage to say no to good things to say yes to great things.

Satan is crafty enough that he does not try hard to get us to pursue “bad” things. He distracts us through seemingly “good” things/deals/opportunities/ideas, away from the few things we need to focus on. And many people want our attention not for our sake, but for theirs.

It felt great to clean up my email. Small steps to the life of simplicity is always rewarding and fulfilling. And it also cascades into other faucets of life. Now, the emails that I need to pay attention to get the attention they deserve.