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The Message That Is Six Months Old
medium connection 30 min +40 XP
Find a message you left unanswered months ago and answer it today.
Why this matters
A message left hanging for six months is usually kept silent not by the other person’s offence but by your own shame: the longer the pause, the more frightening it is to break.
What to do
Scroll your mail and messengers back at least six months and find the message you never answered even though you meant to. Answer it today, and make the first line honest: I am replying this many months late. Do not invent a respectable excuse and do not write that you were very busy. Then get to the actual thing they asked. If the question is dead by now, say so plainly and add one line asking how they are. Send it before the day ends.
Afterwards
Most often the reply is calm and short, and it turns out the other person thought about this far less than you did over those months. Sometimes there is no reply at all — that is a result too: the silence is no longer your debt. If you could not bring yourself to write, at least read the old message out loud: half of the dread lives on the fact that you never actually read it through.
Completed the quest? Earn XP
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