I’m behind on my emails. Way behind. At some point my inbox just became a triage. I was no longer taking emails in the order received – I had to assign priorities. The chest pain cases were handled promptly. Those not needing attention, but soliciting me to re-finance, enhance, find romance or just take a chance all got dismissed as they should. But there were a few who wandered in, not in need of urgent care, but their presence indicates that they needed something from me. Sadly, these were forced to wait. By the time another 20 emails poured into the scene, those waiting emails had dropped off the bottom of my screen – and out of my awareness.

I had forgotten about them. But they still needed attention. Or did they? Maybe a few days had passed. Without a reminder, or an escalation to a phone call, I have to assume that after a short period of time the problem has been resolved – or forgotten. Was it really that important? After all, someone did take the time to compose and send the email – whatever that’s worth.

So for all those forgotten cases that are buried so deep that they have no hope of being dealt with: I declare email bankruptcy. In spirit, it’s like any other bankruptcy. The obligations have been piled high and I can no longer deal with them. Unlike most of the debt causing financial bankruptcy today, my obligations were not self-imposed. So I don’t feel so bad for not doing what I never promised to do anyway.

Does a duty to reply exist because I have a place to receive emails? I have opened the door. So just because people know where it is, I have the responsibility to continuously check for new deliveries and respond to them? I hope not. But where pre-existing duties exist – and some kind of relationship imposes such – among people, perhaps we owe it to each other to respond to emails. The system seems to rely on it. But where the system has failed, it’s time to declare bankruptcy, clear out your inbox, consider those debts forgiven and hope for the best. Here’s hoping.

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