The Unopened Email
We don't avoid work because it's hard. We avoid it because it forces us to decide who we are.
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You have an email you haven’t opened in three days.
It’s not complicated. It’s not urgent. You know exactly what it’s asking.
“Can you speak at our conference in March?”
“What do you think about this new direction?”
“Want to grab coffee sometime?”
You’ll respond eventually. You always do. But not today.
Not because you’re busy. You’ve opened and answered twenty other emails. Scrolled Twitter. Reorganized your desktop. Researched something you don’t need to know.
Here’s what took me years to understand: you’re not avoiding the email. You’re avoiding the decision.
Responding to “can you speak at our conference” means deciding if you want to commit to travel six months out. Deciding if this opportunity matters. Deciding what you’re willing to sacrifice in March.
The email isn’t asking for a response. It’s asking you to know what you want.
And you don’t want to know yet.
This is everywhere once you see it.
The project you can’t start. The conversation you keep postponing. The closet you’ve been meaning to organize for eight months.
You tell yourself it’s procrastination. Laziness. Poor time management.
It’s not.
You’re not avoiding the work. You’re avoiding the decision the work requires.
Starting the project means deciding this is really what you want to build. That this is worth your limited time. That you’re willing to find out if you’re capable of it.
Having the conversation means deciding what the relationship is worth. Whether you care enough to risk conflict. What you’re actually willing to tolerate.
Organizing the closet means deciding what to keep and what to throw away. Which version of yourself you’re letting go of. What you’re admitting you’ll never use.
Every avoided task is hiding an avoided decision.
And decisions are expensive in a way we never calculate.
A decision closes possibilities. Says yes to one thing and no to everything else. Makes you accountable. Reveals what you actually value versus what you pretend to value.
Most people think they’re bad at execution. They’re not. They’re afraid of commitment.
Because committing to something means finding out if it’s really what you wanted. And if it’s not, you have to face that you wasted time on the wrong thing. That you don’t know yourself as well as you thought. That you might not be who you’re trying to be.
It’s easier to leave the email unopened. Leave the project in “I’ll get to it” limbo. Leave the conversation for later.
That way you never have to find out.
My friend has been “about to start” a business for two years. He has the idea. He has the skills. He has the time.
But starting means deciding this is what he’s doing with his life right now. That he’s really betting on himself. That he’s willing to find out if he can build something people want.
The not-starting isn’t protecting him from failure. It’s protecting him from knowledge.
As long as he doesn’t start, he doesn’t have to know if he would have succeeded. Doesn’t have to know if he actually wants this or just likes the idea of wanting it. Doesn’t have to face what he values when there’s real cost involved.
The email sitting in his inbox from a potential partner isn’t work to respond to. It’s a moment of truth to postpone.
This is why the smallest tasks become impossible.
“Should I keep these shoes I haven’t worn in three years?” requires deciding who you are now versus who you were then. Admitting you’re never going to be the person who wears those shoes.
“Should I decline this invitation?” requires deciding what kind of friend you are. What you’re willing to show up for. What matters enough to protect your time for.
“Should I cancel this subscription?” requires deciding you’re not going to use it. That you wasted money. That you’re not who you thought you were when you signed up.
Every avoided micro-decision is protecting you from a macro-truth about yourself.
And we’ll do anything to avoid those truths. We’ll scroll for hours. We’ll reorganize things that don’t need organizing. We’ll research endlessly instead of starting.
Because starting means deciding. And deciding means knowing. And knowing means we can’t pretend anymore.
The email isn’t hard to answer. The answer is hard to live with.
That conference in March - if you say yes, you’ve decided what your time is worth. If you say no, you’ve decided this opportunity isn’t important enough. Either way, you’ve revealed something about yourself you might not want to know.
So the email stays unopened. And you tell yourself you’ll get to it tomorrow.
But tomorrow it’ll still require the same decision. Still force you to know what you actually want. Still make you accountable to a choice.
That’s why it never gets easier. Why some emails stay unread for weeks. Why some decisions stay unmade for years.
Not because they’re difficult. Because they’re revealing.
The work we avoid isn’t hard. The truth it would expose is.
Thank you for reading.
– Scott
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