Never apologize for being offline.
The average human lifespan in the United States is 77, according the CDC. That works out to 4015 weeks, which is obviously wrong, or 28,105 days, which is even more obviously wrong.
Queen Elizabeth, who lived to be 96, was alive for 35,204 days—at least, that's the case if you're the sort of person who trusts math, which I'm not because that doesn't sound like nearly enough time. All math must be wrong. Surely we all have millions of days to play with, at a minimum, and those who live longer have billions.
Think about it: if our lives are so short why do we spend so much time doing things we don't want to, like working, cleaning, and responding to assholes on Twitter? We wouldn't do those things if our lives were that short, therefore our lives must not be that short. The math is wrong.
Recently I've noticed a pattern. People who take longer than three minutes to respond to a message invariably begin their response with some kind of apology. I appreciate where the apologies are coming from—people don't want to inconvenience me. At the same time, though, I think we should all stop apologizing for being offline.
In the past week people have apologized to me for crimes that include taking a walk, caring for children, and riding an airplane—all heinous acts that kept me from instantly knowing the answer to a question I had. Well-meaning as these apologies are, they all add to the cultural sense that if you're not responding to messages instantly, you're letting people down. We need to stop thinking that way.
Never apologize for being offline. Feel free to explain why it took an hour, or a day, or a week to reply, if you must, but do not apologize. Life is short. You're allowed to do things that aren't responding to emails and DMs. It's not a crime. No one is mad at you for it.
Stuff I wrote
- How to brew cider The Wall Street Journal I've got five gallons of fresh pressed cider fermenting in my garage right now. You can do the same thing. It was so fun writing about something completely outside my usual wheelhouse—I can't wait to do it again.
- The Best Substack Alternatives Wired Substack loves me so I figured I'd write about them again. I'm sure they all appreciate it.
- How to Hide the News Widgets in Windows 10 and 11 Wired I can't express to you how much I hate the headlines Microsoft shows me in the Windows user interface.
- How to Bulk Upload Custom Emoji in Slack Wired I can't stop writing about emoji. I will not stop writing about emoji.
- How to ditch the default Google TV home screen and build something better PopSci Replacing ugly user interfaces filled with algorithmically curated content is my hobby.
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