Email takes too much of my time. Not because I drop everything I’m doing to read an email whenever it arrives, but because when I write one, I review it at least once before sending it.

I’m almost obsessive and/or compulsive about this. I have to read over the email to make sure I said what I wanted to say and didn’t say anything I didn’t intend. I need to be certain my message wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings (if feelings are at stake). Instead of being a convenience, email turns into a big project.

Sometimes, if my emotions are involved in the email, I feel like a jerk even if I reviewed the email multiple times before sending. I feel horrible for having asserted my own point of view.

Why?

When I was about to graduate from high school, I finally decided that one of the keys to happiness was to stop caring what other people thought about me. I wished I’d have thought of that a couple of years earlier. But this was a liberating epiphany for me. The second part of this discovery (and perhaps just as important) was the realization that it was conceited of me to think that other people thought anything about me at all, let alone thought negative things about me.

I thought I didn’t care anymore about what others think about me, and I’ve learned I was wrong. Or at least that it didn’t last.

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