…as the deluge of rain caused the streets to disappear I stepped out of the taxi, dragged out my bags and slugged my way into the train station. The tiled floors of the main hall were wet with drenced travellers footsteps and I was slipping and sliding, doing my best to make headway without falling on my butt…
I had a train to catch, and it was leaving in 5 minutes!
That is a scene from my life in Germany. All of the travelling I have done in Germany has been a 25 year adventure, most of it fabulous, but parts like these, well, unforgettable.
Constantly carrying music scores, recording devices and of course clothing, was always a part of the baggage that accompanied me. No matter how light I packed, it was still always cumbersome and too heavy. In addition, I always have a backpack weighing down my every step, regardless of whether it was walking or riding a bike. I really, really get tired of it.
Baggage will make you miserable, in life as well. And the weird thing is, we hang on to all of it as if it was attached to us permenantly.
What baggage am I talking about? The list is very long.
It hit home to me yesterday when I was listening to David Sharpe in a training video when he said…
“A part of you has to die.”
He was speaking about what it takes to be successful in business and in life, where you haven’t ever had success before. The baggage that we carry around with us for years and years, the baggage that is attached to us inside as if it were a part of our body, must be detatched and dropped in order for us to be able to change our lives.
The trouble is, we have lived the old way so long, it seems like it is a part of who we are, and it IS NOT.
What makes up this baggage? How about….
– Fear – Guilt – Shyness – Anger – Poverty – Riches – Jealousy – Addictions – Limiting Beliefs – The Wrong People – Doubt – Indecisiveness – Procrastination – Avoidance – Selfishness – and the list can go on forever…
No one needs any of these things, yet we carry them around with us and it wears us down, and we allow it to continue because that is the way we have lived for our entire lives. We hold on to them as if our lives depended on them and the fact is that our lives depend on NOT holding on to them.
I have been exposed to the Christian religion since I was born, and never really got what sins they were talking about that we should be saved from, what being baptized was all about. To be honest, I don’t think most people who say they understand do…and believe me, this is not a conversion message, just an observation.
But, really, what Jesus stood for was dying to the past and living as if born again. He was saying the exact same thing…
You must let part of you die! So that you can live a full and complete life.
Going to church always made me feel guilty, when that is the place to go to get rid of guilt. I have spent my entire life being afraid of doing something wrong…of being judged…of going to hell when I die…
I realize now that living like that IS HELL…
The point of the story of Jesus’ crucifiction and resurrection is not to make you feel guilty for everything under the sun, but to drop off all of that baggage and have it destroyed forever so you CAN be happy.
We aren’t asked to overcome anything in life…we are required to drop everything that does nothing but pull us down.
When you dive into a pool of water and you go deeper than you intended, all you can think about is getting to the surface again, to breathe again, to live again.
To get what YOU want out of life it is absolutely imperative that you throw off the baggage that has been given to you by your life’s influences. Otherwise, you are doomed to sacrifice your life to something you absolutely hate.
I’ll tell you, it is a little scary, isn’t it? What would life be like without all of that damn baggage? We don’t know…because we have never lived without it and that is what keeps us in the situation we are in.
“Who would Fardels bear, (def. who would bear burdens)
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o’er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action.”
Shakespeare always says it best…from Hamlet…
…it is the life after death, the undiscovered country, after we have dropped all of those burdens, that keeps us away from our freedom…and that is what it is all about…freedom to be who you want to be.
In order to experience what you want to experience, you have to do what you’ve never done…and that for me is to travel light.
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