Is Your Baggage Keeping You In A Rut?

Question: Do you know the difference between a rut and a grave? Answer: A rut's longer!

Sounds harsh - but I'm not writing this for status quo people. This is for people who want to keep moving forward in their lives - who may have a comfort zone, but are always looking for new stuff, or different stuff, or experiences that help them grow.

Let me share a story about baggage: We moved to Boston from California some years ago. After about a year in Boston we concluded people weren't unfriendly - they just had full lives - too full to allow new friends. As a family that had moved often, we saw the structure of the lives of many of the people we came in contact with to be really attractive. For us, every contact, every time we had to see a dentist, a doctor, a pharmacist, a teacher, was a new discovery and challenge. We had met people who - every Sunday - went to 10 AM church on Sunday, then went to Grandma's house for lunch, then watched TV, or played cards, or fought with each other and then stayed for dinner. We knew people that would go out and have spaghetti on Wednesday nights, without fail - Prince spaghetti started that tradition many years ago in Boston. Being new to the area , we envied their comfort and routine and the predictability of their lives. Very little changed in their lives - except growing older - locked in place. Their baggage was filled to overflowing.

We became good friends with people like ourselves - new to the area - open to new relationships. We met people in Boston that are still good friends 15 years later, even though we all now live in different parts of the country. Moving took a lot of our baggage and threw it out the window. We traveled light.

So what do I mean by baggage? Baggage is stuff we have stuck to us - out of habit, or comfort, or necessity. And as the years pass, that stuff tends to accumulate, until our baggage is so full we can't squeeze another bit of anything into it, and when that happens, we stop growing and changing. It can happen at any age - 15 or 30 or 50 or 75. And when your bags are full, and you are comfortable, you stop growing and changing - and life becomes a rut.

Take a look at your own baggage - does it keep you from new things? Does it occupy your time with a diminishing return? We are all creatures of habit - what habits do you have that don't really add value to your lives and the lives of other? What have you always wanted to do? What do you want to do so you die with no regrets? What keeps you from doing those things? I guarantee it is your baggage - the habits of thought or living that keep you in one place.

Start throwing that stuff away - lighten your load - make space for new things. And after you have done that, do it every year.Take an annual inventory of what you do routinely, and then change it. You will be better for it - you will have less baggage - and you will not be in a rut!