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Let’s talk about something truly terrifying. No, not spiders or running out of teabags – we’re talking about the silent menace lurking in your inbox: email overload.
You know the feeling. You open your inbox for “a quick check” and emerge three hours later, bleary-eyed, clutching your head, and wondering where your will to live went. The number in brackets next to the word “Inbox” has reached biblical proportions, and now you’re too afraid to even look at it.
But fear not. You’re not alone. We’re all suffering from the same digital dread. Whether it’s emails, WhatsApp groups with 87 unread messages about nothing, or apps passive-aggressively reminding us we haven’t meditated in three days, modern life is an avalanche of communication, and we’re trying to ski down it with a teaspoon.
Here are a few other modern-day crises we’re all apparently supposed to handle with grace:
Password Panic
Ah, the joy of forgetting your password. Again. And again. You’re now 87% sure your “favourite pet's name” changes daily, and don’t even get us started on the upper case/lower case/number/special character dance. You finally create a strong password like “Waffle!Canoe7?” and promptly forget it within 12 minutes. Beautiful.
Too Many Tabs Syndrome
One minute you’re reading a recipe for banana bread, the next you’ve got 47 tabs open, two Spotify playlists playing at once, and no memory of why you opened the browser in the first place. You tell yourself you’ll sort them out later, but “later” is now a mythical concept, like “Inbox Zero”.
Zoom Fatigue & Webcam Anxiety
In the Before Times, we worried about turning up to meetings with spinach in our teeth. Now we worry about Wi-Fi, lighting, and whether our background makes us look emotionally stable. Bonus points if you’ve ever said, “You’re on mute” more times than “Hello” this week.
Streaming Stress
With 74 different streaming platforms and approximately 4,203 shows everyone insists you must watch, choosing something to watch feels like making a major life decision. By the time you decide, it’s bedtime, and you’ve watched… nothing.
Notification Numbness
Bing! Ding! Buzz! Our phones are like needy toddlers, constantly demanding attention. You check one notification, and suddenly you’ve watched 23 reels, ordered a pizza, and forgotten why you picked up your phone in the first place.
Back to the Emails…
There’s no magic wand for email overload (although if someone invents one, we’d like to be notified immediately). But here’s a humble suggestion: maybe not every message requires an immediate reply. Maybe “sent from my phone” is a polite way of saying, “I’ve done my best - please lower your expectations.”
Take a breath. Mark a few things as “read” without reading them (go on, live a little). And remember: if it’s truly urgent, they’ll probably call. Or send a pigeon. Or show up with biscuits.
In the meantime, put the kettle on. The emails can wait. Probably.
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