10/30/2022
💡What I learned from Gmail! A few years ago, when I was stuck in a continuous state of urgency, I learned a lesson about "acceptance". I learned after many disappointments that it is not healthy to control how others should react to my voice message, missed calls, whatsapp text, email, etc. 🤷♀️We don't know what the other person is doing and the sense of urgency of our message is only our perception. Believe it or not, I learned that from Gmail! 📨
👩💻 Before Gmail, I used Outlook for emails and was very satisfied with the availability to put flags ✅ for urgent, important, to have acknowledge receipt and even add a reminder for the other person to respond by this date, etc. I discovered that my expectations only brought me discomfort, and frustration, 😓 usually blaming others (lack of response) for my unhappiness.
👀 Some years later when I started a new job where they use Gmail, I desperately wanted to add urgent/important flags. I started asking around, how can you do that? And our Gmail guru answered calmly: You can’t, the only person allowed to assign color symbols for importance or urgency to your message is the recipient, Yes, the receiver decides what to do with your message.
Then, ✨I had an AHA moment✨. Wait! He's absolutely right! I cannot react to everything that comes my way, I must give it a priority code. If I want to prioritize a project, I make sure I use a filter to highlight any message related to it with a colored symbol.
🙌🏻 This can be applied to our daily interactions too. If I am busy in meetings but I know my husband will call with important information I need for a loan application, as soon as I see a message from him I will react, but I won’t react immediately if my sister sends a joke via whatsapp. I’m the one that decides, so let’s accept that others are also free to decide, they have their own priorities too. What is urgent for me, not necessarily is urgent for others. Do you get frustrated when your text is not answered inmediately?
☺️ Hope this story helps you practice more acceptance and increase your wellbeing.
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