End Of The Day Letters

Think about this scenario.

You get to the end of the day, and you open a handwritten letter a friend sent to you.

And the letter contains nothing but dreadful news. Global and societal catastrophe. Pestilence, death, fear, political dysfunction, greed, corporate turmoil, and more.

And imagine, this is a daily occurrence. Why on earth would you keep opening the letters?

But what would happen if you started sending letters and gifts of encouragement to them, even if you stopped opening their letters of catastrophe and worry and dread (and memes)?

Like seriously, what would the compound interest end up looking like for your spirit, their spirit, our collective mental health, our energy and focus on family, friends, duty, responsibilities, craft?

I fear we’ve become our own individual newsrooms, become editors who keep sending wave after wave of bad news to each other not merely nightly, but every second the bad news arrives via instant messaging mediums.

The scenario I painted came to me if I placed the constant sharing of bad news in the context of the 1910’s. It would be slow enough in frequency to really question your friend’s intentions.

You’d really start wondering what is going on with your friend. But you’d also wonder (hopefully) what is going on with you and your developing fixation on everything wrong.

Just the thought of opening all your emails, DM chats, and comments at once at 8pm, in your study, with a nice fire going, and read the constant pouring out of fear and/or aloofness from others would cause disruption to the end of your day.

I thought of this because many digital minimalists prescribe batching all your activities at once. And if it results in a constant consumption of panicked news…then it’s time to flip the script. Send something positive. Find the hope. And send the hope. And see how that compounds in their lives (and yours).