I’m the type of person that even if something has been in plain sight for years I can ignore it for so long that I forget that it exists.
The burned out light bulb in the bathroom.
The pile of junk mail on top of the dresser.
The unorganized tool racks in the shed.
The boxes of unused audio/video or computer cables in the closet.
The half eaten piece of cake in the back of the fridge from a previous birthday.
Sometimes it’s no big deal to live like this. It can cause a minor inconvenience every now and then. Sometimes it’s downright disgusting.
Today I noticed something that has been in front of me for years that I have supposedly ignored and forgotten. I was checking my email and my eyes wandered to the left of my computer screen. There I saw a long list of folders that I’ve created over the years so that all of my emails could be organized just in case I ever needed to reference some of them again.
For example, I have folders labeled taxes, bills, and finances. You’d think those could all go in one folder, huh? I have folders labeled Craig’s List, travel reservations, and real estate. I have an old folder labeled “From My Fiancé” (I’ve been married almost 11 years). I have really important folders labeled fantasy football, Eddie From Ohio, and DJ. I’m not sure why I have a folder labeled “Dentist,” but I dislike the dentist so much I decided not to open it for fear of terrible memories. I also have a folder called “DC Talk.” Unfortunately, I haven’t had anything to put in there for a while.
It wasn’t all those folders that caught my attention, though. There were two other folders among all the rest that jumped out at me today for the first time in years. Both folders were designated as “Conflict.”
It may seem odd to you that I kept emails that were full of conflict. It may seem even more odd to you that I kept them in a specific folder. I guess my thought process was that until these conflicts were resolved (and maybe even after their resolution) I may need these emails for some reason. You never know when you’ll need to refer back to what was written at the beginning of the conflict, right?
The crazy thing was that it had been years since I had put anything in the conflict folders. Was this because I hadn’t had any conflict in my life for the past few years? Absolutely not. Was this because no conflict had recently happened in the form of email? I wish I could say that was true, but no. I think the reason I hadn’t put anything in those folders over the past few years was because of a stronger focus on my part to not dwell on the conflict that happens in life and to not live in a constant state of conflict. Maybe you could call it focusing on the positive, but I prefer to think it’s more of a conscience effort to look at the bigger picture and consider what’s really important in life.
If this was the case, though, and I really had turned over this new leaf in the way that I live, then why did I still have those folders?
So, I opened them. I read all the old emails in them. They made me feel terrible. I hated remembering the way I felt when I originally read them. I hated remembering the way I felt as I responded to them. Why was I reliving this?
Then I realized something. The intelligent people at Yahoo created a great feature as a part of their email service. They created a “Delete Folder” option.
I know we’ll always have conflict in our lives. We can try to avoid it, but eventually something will happen. We may cause it with our own actions or maybe it’ll be someone else’s fault completely. I also know that past conflict can leave lasting scars.
Still, though, it felt really great to delete entire folders filled with conflict. I don’t need to hold on to it. It’s over. It was years ago. Even though I hadn’t thought about those folders for a long, long time, they were still there in the background. They were just hanging around as a constant subconscious reminder of a not-so-distant past stressful moment. Deleting those folders felt like I was literally letting go of things that I was holding on to for no reason.
Everyone should try this. Just hit “delete” sometimes.
