Daily Inspiration Quote by Bob Considine

A line like this works because it turns a petty modern anxiety into a mock principle. “I believe” borrows the solemn cadence of credo and civic duty, then squanders it on something aggressively small: opening mail. The joke is not just procrastination; it’s the performance of control. Considine frames avoidance as discipline, as if he’s practicing a stoic ritual rather than dodging bills, bad news, and the bureaucratic grind.

The kicker is “whether it needs it or not,” a comic steal from the language of maintenance and moral correction. You “need” to open mail the way a car “needs” an oil change; the phrasing makes paperwork sound like a machine you service at your convenience. It’s also a sly comment on how institutions demand our constant attention. By reducing responsiveness to a monthly schedule, he’s reclaiming time from the steady drip of demands that arrive in envelopes, each one asserting urgency.

Context matters: Considine wrote in an era when mail was the bloodstream of work and obligation, not an optional nostalgia. As a journalist, he lived amid deadlines and public claims on his attention. The quip doubles as occupational gallows humor: if your job is to process information all day, the last thing you want at home is more information asking to be processed.

Underneath the wit is a sharp little thesis about autonomy. Mail is other people’s agenda delivered to your door. Opening it once a month is a small, unserious rebellion that reveals a serious truth: even the most “responsible” adults fantasize about putting the world on mute.