the load your carry
uses your capacity
even if it’s light
Imagine if I gave you a folder to hold. Under the rules of our game, you must hold the folder in your hands, and carry it with you all day.
The folder is not physically heavy. But over the course of the day it becomes heavier mentally as you attempt to use your hands for other purposes.
Think about all the activities you do during a day. Now imagine holding this folder through all of them.
Suddenly that folder doesn’t seem so light. It begins to occupy more mind space as you try to navigate how to do your other activities while holding the folder.
It becomes physically more demanding as other people give you things to hold. Maybe those new things are what you really wanted and the folder feels like something you have to carry around.
You might find yourself emotionally depleted by the end of the day, from having to go everywhere with this folder.
Now imagine that someone comes to you bearing a gift. It’s something you have wanted for a long time, but you can’t receive it. Your hands are tied up with the folder and the other stuff that people gave you throughout the day.
The folder, obviously, is a metaphor for the loads we carry in life. The projects and people we commit to, the communities we engage in, the expectations we set for ourselves.
Often we dismiss these things as not being a big deal. Perhaps they don’t take much time or they don’t seem to be so complicated.
But these commitments weigh us down in other ways: energetically, emotionally, spiritually.
The challenge is that often the load we carry is invisible to us and to others.
Before you judge yourself or anyone else for their accomplishments, being slow, remember that you don’t always see the load people carry. Sometimes you don’t even see your own.
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