As junk emails keep relentlessly cascading into my inbox day in and day out, I vacillate between anger, grief, resignation, then anger again. Like anyone running a business, I'm prone to more and more of this unwanted junk. Over the years I've gotten my website URL and email address scattered over countless websites in an attempt to get my name out and promote my services. Double edges sword indeed. The more places your email is posted on the internet, the more likely that junk email spiders will gobble up that address and feed it into the spam maw
I'm certainly not tossing away that email address that I've been using for years. So, as a cost of doing business, each morning I'll spend 10 or 15 minutes scrolling through the junk, searching for the nuggets of real and welcomed communication. But you say, why don't you just crank up your spam filter and send it all right to the junk folder? Well, I've fiddled with those junk settings, and could easily use the highest filtering and have a clean, lean, manageable inbox each day. But then this nagging worry will creep up, that I'm maybe missing that one new client with a big, juicy assignment.
So I continue to scroll, and scroll. Now I'm going to try a Zen approach. Stay calm, keep the blood pressure low. Maybe view it as a treasure hunt, searching for those pearls among the dross. It is a bit thrilling to see an actual, desired message every now and then. Treasure found.
Then again, my magnanimity extends only so far. I still would like to see severe prison sentences for the originators of this junk. Or maybe sentence them to 16 hours a day of scrolling through emails for diet patches, online doctorates, photo schools, appendage enhancement, awesome stocks picks and dating services.
