Archiving a conversation hides it from your inbox, not from your head. Some things need dealing with, not hiding.
CREATIVITY
WHAT THIS MEANS
Clearing something off your screen does nothing whatsoever to the thing itself. The unanswered message, the person you are avoiding, the form you keep sliding out of view: all of them carry on taking up space somewhere less convenient, usually at eleven at night. Tidy and resolved look identical from outside and feel nothing alike.
Choose the one you have hidden longest and do the actual thing today: reply, decline, apologise, ask the question. Keep it short, because most of these are three sentences. The ones that genuinely need no answer can be archived honestly once you have decided so.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Which conversation have you hidden instead of finishing?
MORE IN PARADOX, METAPHOR & FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- The word “goodbye” got shortened over centuries until it fit in a hurry. Don’t let your actual goodbyes get rushed too.
- Talking to your grandparents is crossing a bridge a lot of people your age skip. The view is different over there.
- Rivers move gravel along the bottom, not just water. What you can’t see is often doing the real work.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.