Between the 10 inboxes I maintain, I have – as of 7:16AM on Friday December 17th – 122,761 emails. I’ve tried to outsource this problem. I’ve deleted more than 200K emails. It’s well-worn and highly examined territory, a story many folks are familiar with, more profoundly than I. The problem is rooted in email subscriptions – I maintain, conservatively, a dozen subscriptions. They drop into my inbox every day bearing wisdom from Daily Stoic, James Clear, The Lightning Notes, My Morning Routine…ironically, many contain advice regarding how to simplify one’s life or strategies to embrace minimalism. There’s some part of me that believes the knowledge will disappear as the email hits the virtual email bin – can knowledge be destroyed?

Maybe the tally is proof of life – at the end of the day, I can say “behold, my inbox! Cower before it and fear my productivity, my popularity, and my important busyness!” What else can I point to? My grandfather was a carpenter and what he built still stands – the end of his day is measured in drywall, walls erected, orders placed for goods, and decades after his death, those who still know him can say “sure, I remember Bill – he build the Credit Union on 4th.”

When my mother died, her “proof of life” was calendars going back to the 60s including important events, meal planning, and the quotidian that fills our lives. I think about the person she was writing an event like “take mom to hospital” in early February 1973 and the different person she was when she wrote “mom’s funeral services” in mid-February.

Is an inbox proof of life? If not, what is? How will we recount our days? How are we different today than we were yesterday? Lin-manuel Miranda wrote that we have no control who lives, who dies, who tells our story…what stories will be told of these singular lives we lead?

I’d love to hear your thoughts – not only about proof of life but in how you act from a place of abundance. Meanwhile, I should probably get back to clearing out that inbox…