How heavy is your backpack?

In the last year or so I have come to realize that I am exactly where I need to be. I have developed and grown the relationships in my life, welcoming new people and ideas, leaving behind a few old relationships which bring nothing positive to my life.

May sound harsh, but it’s true. So then it got me thinking how little stress I feel in certain areas of my life where stress used to be heaviest.

I have filtered out the bad, replaced it with the good, and am stressing less. “The slower we move the faster we die”, or so they say. So I’ve decided to refill my backpack and keep moving faster. My question to you then is, how heavy is your backpack?

How heavy is your backpack?

In the movie Up In The Air starring George Clooney, his character gives a speech challenging his audience to answer this very question:

“Now this is going to be a little difficult, so stay with me. How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second you are carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff you have in your life and start with the little things the shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks: then start adding larger stuff, clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV – backpack should be getting pretty heavy now – and you go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home – I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Feel the weight… of that bag. Now light it on fire. Liberating isn’t it? Is that what you wanted to be carrying? Now let’s start over with a new backpack… one filled with more important things.

Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office, and then you move to the people who you trust with your most intimate secrets, your brothers and sisters, your children, parents, and finally your husband, wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend – and get ‘em into that backpack – feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake; your relationships are your heaviest components in your life… all those negotiations and arguments and secrets are compromising.

The slower we move, the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living.  Some animals were meant to carry each other to live, symbiotically over a lifetime, star-crossed lovers, monogamous swans – We are not swans, we are sharks.”

In this speech (video below), Clooney’s character says that people are the heaviest components in our lives… they weigh more in our backpacks than any material object.

I have decided from this day on not to waste one more minute carrying extra weight of lies, secrets and empty promises. I would much rather gain strength from letting these aspects of my life go and carrying my backpack containing positive, healthy, strong relationships.

Self-success starts here… It isn’t going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it.

What’s in your backpack?

Take a moment and think. Join me in making your backpack’s weight reflect the importance of your life.