Packing Your Own Backpack

Anyone who has spent time backpacking learns an important lesson very quickly:

Weight matters.

Before setting out on a long trail, every item gets scrutinized.

Do I really need this?

How often will I use it?

Is there a lighter option?

What happens if I leave it behind?

At home, an extra pound doesn’t seem like much.

Ten miles into a hike, it feels like a brick.

The Appalachian Trail has a way of teaching honesty.

It reveals the difference between what is essential and what is merely comforting.

It also teaches that carrying unnecessary weight is exhausting.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much backpacking resembles life.

Most of us spend our days adding things to our emotional backpacks.

Responsibilities.

Expectations.

Worries.

Regrets.

Imagined futures that haven’t happened yet.

And perhaps most commonly, other people’s stuff.

At first, it feels like love.

If someone I care about is struggling, surely the compassionate thing to do is help carry the load.

Sometimes that’s true.

But helping someone carry their backpack is not the same thing as putting it on your own shoulders.

That distinction took me far too long to learn.

I’ve spent seasons of my life carrying things that didn’t belong to me.

Other people’s choices.

Other people’s consequences.

Other people’s growth.

Other people’s healing.

I worried about outcomes I couldn’t control and spent enormous amounts of energy trying to help people arrive at destinations they weren’t yet ready to reach.

What I eventually learned is that growth is a lot like hiking.

Nobody can walk your miles for you.

Other people can encourage you.

They can walk beside you, offer water, share a map, point toward the trail, and cheer when you reach the summit.

But eventually each person has to carry their own pack and choose whether they will keep moving forward.

One of the hardest lessons in love is learning that caring and carrying are not the same thing.

Caring says, “I’m here if you need me.”

Carrying says, “I’ll take responsibility for your journey.”

Only one of those is sustainable.

The Appalachian Trail teaches another lesson as well.

When your pack becomes too heavy, the answer is rarely to become stronger.

The answer is usually to unpack it.

Lay everything out on the ground and ask a difficult question:

Does this belong to me?

Does this responsibility belong to me?

Does this outcome belong to me?

Does this lesson belong to me?

Some things absolutely do.

Many things do not.

The surprising thing is that when we stop carrying what isn’t ours, we become more available to carry what is.

We have more energy, more patience, more compassion, and more presence.

We stop spending our lives trying to hike someone else’s trail and start paying attention to the one beneath our own feet.

The goal was never to become indifferent.

The goal was never to stop loving people.

The goal was simply to travel lighter.

To carry what is ours.

To leave behind what isn’t.

And to trust that the people we love are often stronger than we think.

After all, every hiker deserves the dignity of walking their own trail.

And every backpack is lighter when it only contains what belongs there.