Spam. No, not the kind you fry up in a skillet if you grew up in certain parts of the country in the ’60s and ’70s—I’m talking about the relentless flood of unwanted emails, texts, and mail that clogs up our lives every single day.

First, a little trivia—does anyone actually know what SPAM stands for? Well, in the digital world, it comes from the phrase “Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages.” And that couldn’t be a more accurate description.  Credit must also be given to Monty Python, “Spam, Spam, everywhere…”

I spend an hour a day sorting through my emails, deciding what to keep, what to delete, and what to unsubscribe from. That’s seven hours a week—almost a full workday—just managing junk I never asked for. And don’t even get me started on unsubscribing—how is it that I’m unsubscribing from something I never subscribed to in the first place? Some companies even ask for your phone number before they’ll remove you from their list—why in the world would I hand over more personal information to the very people who already abused it?

Spam isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a massive waste of time. If I’m spending an hour a day on this nonsense, how many other people are doing the same? Multiply that by millions, and the productivity loss in this country is staggering. That’s time we could be spending with family, working on something meaningful, or even just getting a little extra sleep.

Government Action? Where Are You?

If the federal government wants to do something truly useful, how about tackling spam? We already have the CAN-SPAM Act, which supposedly regulates commercial emails, but it’s not doing much good. Why aren’t companies that send out tens of thousands of emails every day being shut down? Why are phone numbers and email addresses so easily sold to marketers and scammers? It’s an invasion of privacy, plain and simple.

Text spam is getting worse, too. I used to think my inbox was bad, but now my phone is constantly lighting up with scam messages. “Is your back in pain?” “Do you need male enhancement pills?” “Have you been in a car accident?” No, no, and no! And if I needed medical help, I wouldn’t be trusting some random text message to fix it.

Paper Spam: The Mailbox Nightmare

It’s not just digital spam. Physical spam is just as bad. When I travel and come back home, I have three bags of mail waiting for me—personal, business, and miscellaneous junk. Tonight, I sorted through a stack about 12-15 inches tall. And you know what I actually kept? A stack less than half an inch—mostly bills and a few important documents.

The rest? Trash.

And speaking of bills, I recently called the power company for my Alabama home and asked them to stop sending me paper statements. Their response? “We don’t offer paperless billing.” Seriously? In 2025? They’d rather pay for printing and postage every month than just send me an email? These are the kinds of inefficiencies that drive me crazy.

Fighting Back Against Junk Mail

Unlike email, there’s no “unsubscribe” button for physical junk mail, which makes it even harder to get rid of. But here’s a fun trick: when you get those prepaid return envelopes in mail solicitations, stuff them full of random junk and send them right back. Let them pay the postage for their own useless mail. If enough people did that, maybe they’d think twice before clogging up our mailboxes.

And then there are the mailers that include actual coins glued to their letters. I got two cents in one envelope and fifty cents in another. If a company can afford to send millions of these out, they clearly don’t need my donation. So, I thanked them for their generous contribution to my grandkids’ piggy banks and moved on.

Final Thought: Time is Our Most Valuable Asset

We all need to take a step back and think about how much time we’re wasting on spam. Whether it’s deleting emails, sorting junk mail, or sitting through endless automated phone menus that never connect us to a real person, it all adds up. Our time is too valuable to be spent sifting through nonsense.

So, here’s my challenge to businesses, government agencies, and technology companies: fix this problem. Stop letting personal information be sold, crack down on spam operations, and give people back the time they’re losing every day.

As for me? I’ll keep unsubscribing, deleting, and tossing out junk mail—but I won’t stop pointing out just how broken this system is.

—H. Marc Helm