Email addiction

In yesterday's blog entry about infinite energy vs. finite energy, I talked about burn-out.

I realize that part of the wear and tear I experience comes from my thinking I am necessary, that Heavenletters' success is somehow dependent upon me. Of course, it isn't, yet I race along as if it were. I forget to remind myself that God is the Doer.

What would happen, for instance, if I didn't answer an email?

If I weren't attached to what I do or worry what would happen if I didn't, would I be better at accepting my limits? Would I mind so much if I didn't respond to an email or emails? Do I think the world would fall apart if I didn't?

Hmm, even though I know better, I must believe my replies are seriously necessary. I must like to see the words I write down. It must be I write from my own resplendent need, just as I wanted to put the word resplendent here, not really knowing what it means though I'm keeping the word because it occurred to me, and I like the sound of it. I must like to play in words as if they were clay.

So, I have to wonder, is it from my need to express myself that I email so much, and not from anyone else's need at all? Is it my need to fulfill some standard I gleaned from somewhere that I seem to feel the need to extend myself or over-extend myself? Perhaps if I could be more economical with myself, if I could be more self-sufficient, I wouldn't feel stretched. I must need to set boundaries within myself.

Heaven's dear friend, Bernie Siegel, to the best of my knowledge, answers every email. He answers very tersely. Often not a whole sentence. Sometimes just a word or two. He doesn't write beloved or resplendent and, yet, his love and caring are clear. He doesn't put pillow after pillow around the kernel of what he is saying as I seem to do.

Okay, I have decided to become terse.

Now, on the other hand, I grew up with a work ethic. My parents worked so hard and such long hours. No one today, to my knowledge, works as hard and as long as they did, six days a week from 3 a.m. to after 6 p.m. and to midnight on Saturdays. How many hours is that? I never once heard them say, however, that they were pushing themselves or over-extending.  I never heard them give that a thought. I never heard them consider what they liked to do or didn't like to do. Certainly they never complained. They just did what was theirs to do.

My parents weren't addicted to work.

The time has come that I have to face the fact that I'm addicted to email. The first thing an addicted person has to do is admit their addiction. I am admitting my addiction, that it is my addiction, and I am responsible for it.

I still have a lot of thinking to do.

With Heaven Admin's encouragement, I have decided that, at least on Sundays now, after I finish the basic Heaven work, I'm going to close down my computer and not turn it on even once. Today is Sunday. Wish me luck!

Meanwhile, if you don't hear from me, or get only a one-word word response like: "Thanks," you will know I'm trying to dry out.