Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Jim McDermottApril 30, 2015

If I were to open my email right now and sift back through the debris that is my inbox/life, I’m pretty sure somewhere between two months ago and two years ago I would find at least a couple emails—okay, probably more than a couple—that were from people I actually cared about that I read quickly at the time and then said, “When I have some time, I’m going to write a really nice response to this person.”

Which was a very nice sentiment, if I do say so myself. As we all probably know from the receiving end, there’s nothing worse than getting a three word response to an email you actually put some time into. (Whether any of us should actually be crafting emails that read like letters rather than memos is a whole nother story.)

The problem is, the longer it takes to actually craft a response, the greater the guilt and shame that builds up. And that guilt/shame/I-have-no-good-excuse-for-this-delay starts to get in the way of actually writing anything. It’s strange but true, these emails become like inbox cancers, slowly turning what was good will on every side into an awful metastasis of self-hatey run-the-other-direction-should-I-ever-see-them-on-the-street.

And then there’s the other emails I get where I know there’s probably fistfuls of conflict waiting for me. Like the response to an email you sent that said some hard things. (Nothing like an email chain of rage and response to make you want to throw your computer/friends/family out the window.) Or the email from a boss that I would be crazy not to look at and yet I’m too terrified to do so.

We live in a world of instant communication. We can get messages on our PHONES, for God’s sake. And yet looking at the inbox some days, it’s like Louis C.K. says: "Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy."

Until today, my friends! For April 30th is Email Debt Forgiveness Day, an online Jubliee in which all of us are allowed to respond to any email that we have delaying/hiding from in shame, without apology. We can just send a response as though we got the email yesterday. No further comment needed. Shame begone.

I’m not making this up—though I wish I had, because I’m pretty sure I could light Los Angeles from the guilt that emails like this produce in me. No, this comes from the podcast Reply All, which each week does great stories about our lives and the internet. At the end of their podcast two weeks ago, hosts Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt shared their own horrible online purgatories, and Vogt announced April 30 would henceforth be known as Email Debt Forgiveness Day.

So it’s a real thing. Two guys online with a microphone said so. And it's a good thing to boot. Life is way too short to be worried about emails. (Unless they're from me. SERIOUSLY, WHY HAVEN'T YOU RESPONDED TO MY EMAIL?) 

Shame-based lifeforms, go out there today and type your way to freedom. As Pope Francis keeps telling us, mercy is supposed to be our jam. And you have to start somewhere.  

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

“One of the things I find most appealing about the award-winning writer and poet Mary Karr is her forthright, almost brutal, honesty.”
James Martin, S.J.July 01, 2025
Pope Leo XIV urged new archbishops to help him foster unity in a church rich in diversity. Eight of those new archbishops are from the United States, and they spoke to Catholic News Service about how they can help promote fraternity in today’s polarized world.
This week on “Jesuitical,” Zac and Ashley chat with Christopher White about his new book, ‘Pope Leo XVI: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.’
JesuiticalJune 30, 2025
Kerry Weber, incoming president of the Catholic Media Association, and executive editor of America Magazine, speaks June 26, 2025, during the Catholic Media Conference in Phoenix. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)
Kerry Weber is an executive editor for America. On May 20, 2025, the Catholic Media Association announced that she was elected president,
Grace LenahanJune 30, 2025