A Story About Baggage and Chairs...

Everybody on this planet has so-called "baggage," and if somebody tells you otherwise and insist that they have no baggage you can rest assured that their particular brand of b5aggage is denial and pretending that they have no baggage.

Thus, the question isn't one of whether or not we have baggage, but one of what exactly that baggage is and whether or not we have looked at it and organized it and repacked it to where it fits neatly into a bag that fits in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of us.

Our hurts, our wounds, our prejudices, our resentments, our self-loathing, our insecurities, our anxieties, our sensitivities, and all those other things are always going to be with us. And we all have them.

Escaping from them is not an option. I've tried that, not very successfully!
At best, we can look at them - painful as that may be - and try to organize them and be aware of them and aware of the situations that make them rear their ugly heads like little demons sitting in our shoulder... and sometimes make us retrospectively ponder "why on Earth did I do that? That is so not me."

My friend Hale, who was once upon a time a popular self-growth workshop presenter, used to liken our baggage to chairs, as a way to put a relatable framework around human baggage.

We all have these chairs that we carry around. Some of us have big chairs, some of us have comfy chairs, some of us have wildly colorful chairs, some have very austere and uncomfortable chairs, some of us have interestingly artistic chairs. Some of us even have invisible chairs that we deny the existence of, and a few of us are actually carrying multiple shares.

Some of us keep our chairs locked away in a room in the house where nobody ever goes, while others show off our chairs like trophies, to anybody and everybody who comes by to visit... almost like they are rare museum pieces that everybody should appreciate. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle, occasionally bringing out our chairs for examination, and then going back to carrying them on our back.

Of course chairs can be quite heavy and so sometimes we end up getting tired from the weight of carrying them. And it can be pretty awkward to have a chair on your back when you're trying to do other things with other people out there and you always have to take into account that there's a chair back there and "I can't necessarily do that because of my chair."

Sometimes we join forums and associations and support groups where people all bring their chairs and we sit around and talk about chairs. A few of us feel like our chairs might not be that difficult and sometimes we offer to carry somebody else's chair because it seems like they're so tired and their chairs so heavy that they can barely make it.

Of course there's one singular problem in the telling of this entire tale, which is whether or not we ever set our chairs down. Have you ever tried going anywhere and doing things without bringing your chair? Not saying that you should give away your chair and let it disappear because that's not possible... but how about just leaving it at home?

How about simply being aware of that you own a chair, and that it sits in a particular spot in your house, but it doesn't really need to serve any purpose other than to be a place that you occasionally sit if you need to. The rest of the time it's simply a piece of furniture that's "over there," much like any other piece of furniture.

I guess the moral of the story here is that we often let too much of our lives revolve around our pain, to such a degree that we are not able to enjoy moments and connections and relationships without in some way bringing that pain into the situation.

If we're reluctant to set down our chairs, we have to figure out why that is so. What do we believe we are gaining, by holding onto them?

Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your week!

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Created at 2024-03-20 00:58 PDT
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