Lately, I’m getting more unnecessary emails than usual. “Action Required!” most of them demand in their subject line. They’re emails about old accounts, new terms of service, higher pricing, and other “critical” updates.
This morning, I opened one from a brand whose fitness tracking armband I used to own. “You haven’t used your account in years. In 60 days, we’ll delete it.” “Sooo, actually, I don’t need to do anything right now,” I thought. Why didn’t they send this email in 55 days? But, for a moment, they had me.
“Oh no! What about my data?” I had used this fitness armband to track my 10,000-steps-a-day experiment. Somewhere in that account, there’s proof that I took that many steps daily for a year. But that was almost a decade ago. The device has long been broken and gone. And you know what? I haven’t checked that data since.
There’s a screenshot in the post I wrote about the experience. I briefly glanced at it this morning. “Hm, yeah. I think that’s enough.” And even when that screenshot one day goes the way of all things, I’ll still know. I’ll always have walked 10,000 steps a day for a year. No one can take that away from me.
So no. Action not required. It’s a gimmick to scare you. We worry about losing what we have more than gaining what we don’t—even if we’re about to lose something we’ve completely forgotten. Companies prey on this instinct. But you can choose nothing over nonsense. And if need be, you can almost always reactivate things later.
“Action required” translates to “driftwood floating by.” Wave, and enjoy the peace as it floats past the horizon.
