My New Favorite Pastime...

I’m an early riser—sometimes an exceedingly early riser—and it is in those pre-dawn hours that I have found a new and pleasurable pastime. It’s best enjoyed in an environment of solitude because it takes a certain amount of concentration. One of the most delightful aspects of this early morning occupation is the ability to do it without ever leaving my bed. And it doesn’t wake up my husband. You might be guessing: “Ah, she’s a latecomer to Wordle,” but you’d be wrong. I’ve been a Wordle addict for nearly two years—since The New York Times bought it and made it available at one nanosecond after midnight each day, regardless of one’s time zone. Wherever in the world I might be, Wordle is my first after-midnight activity. The truth is that I don’t embark on my new passion until I have put my daily Wordle to bed—hopefully in less than four tries. Only then do I allow myself to turn my attention to my new favorite hobby, one I likely share with many others around the globe—maybe even hundreds of thousands. Dare I say millions? While I take immense pleasure in the exercise, there’s a fair probability that the vast majority of participants consider it anything but an enjoyable activity. Maybe for them it likely has the feeling of an obligation, of an annoying necessity. For my part, I embrace it with relish and revel in my accomplishments.

OK—enough beating around the bush. Not sure what to call my new, early-morning preoccupation, so let’s keep it simple and identify it by its function: UNSUBSCRIBING. Propped up with pillows behind my head and using only the light provided by my cell phone, I scroll through each and every email from the preceding twenty-four hours with a ruthless objective to rid myself permanently of as many as possible, without, of course, eliminating those that are essential. Highlighting the useless email and then hitting the “delete” button on the keyboard is child’s play and has the downside of only exacerbating the problem because sure as death and taxes, the missive will reappear, most likely within twenty-four hours. Perpetual elimination requires the act of “unsubscribing” which is no doubt tedious but comes with great rewards. Thus, my enjoyment.

Each email I consider worthy of extinction—and remember that “one person’s trash may be another’s treasure”—fits into a category that helps to simplify the process that I consider sport. There is: politics, “deals” too good to turn down, fashion, surveys, products recently purchased, infomercials, and on and on. When I come to a political email, I am ruthless—any and every political solicitation from any and every source is demolished without mercy, without looking for the gist of the message and without a hint of remorse. That includes emails even from people I know and people I may admire. When it comes to product marketing, I will sometimes scroll through allowing myself to be intrigued, but I eventually get a grip and trash it, thinking, “I can always google it if I become interested.” Surveys, unless they come from a recently visited doctor’s office or restaurant, get the same treatment as political solicitations—they are guillotined with the sword of “unsubscribe.”

Fortunately, the law in this country requires marketing email material to provide the recipient with the option to cancel. That being said, we all know that marketers are passionate about preserving eyeballs and can go to great lengths to make opting out anything but easy. But perseverance works and I’ve come to take great pleasure in finding the “unsubscribe” option in a shaded rectangle. “Ah ha—gotcha,” I think with a smile. There’s a small but strong magnifying glass on my bedside table, and it can come in handy when my eyes are not quite up to the job on their own. Sometimes the word “unsubscribe” never appears; instead is the phrase, “manage your options”—just one of the tricks of the trade. Others include forcing one to include the email address, or being obligated to fill out a questionnaire as to why the material is not valuable, before a successful exit. All that intrigue adds to the sense of accomplishment when, at the end of twenty or even thirty minutes I have permanently eliminated as many as fifty solicitations that are of no use or interest to me.

When I first engaged in this new sport, I was wondering when I might accomplish my mission and be freed from every possible unwanted email, but strangely the project doesn’t seem to be getting close to fulfillment. Each morning, I find many new political solicitations, offers for best deals on clothes, “best deals” from companies I last shopped with over two years ago. But of this much I am sure—I have as much staying power as the combined marketing forces in the world.
 

Afterword: Please note - My new book, Breaking Glass: Tales from the Witch of Wall Street, is at the publisher and will be out early next year.