How much does your
life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to
feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel ’em? Now I want you to pack it with all
the stuff that you have in your life. You start with the little things. The
things on shelves and in drawers, the knick-knacks, the collectibles. Feel the
weight as that adds up. Then you start adding larger stuff, clothes, table-top
appliances, lamps, linens, your TV.
The backpack should
be getting pretty heavy now. And you go bigger. Your couch, bed, your kitchen
table. Stuff it all in there. Your car, get it in there. Your home, whether
it’s a studio apartment or a two bedroom house. I want you to stuff it all into
that backpack. Now try to walk. It’s kind of hard, isn’t it? This is what we do
to ourselves on a daily basis. We weigh ourselves down until we can’t even
move. And make no mistake, moving is living.
Now, I’m gonna set
that backpack on fire. What do you want to take out of it? What do you want to
take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can’t remember. Drink some
ginkgo and let the photos burn. In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking
up tomorrow with nothing. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it?
Now, this is gonna
be a little difficult, so stay with me. You have a new backpack. Only this
time, I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances,
friends of friends, folks around the office, and then you move into the people
that you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your cousins, your aunts, your
uncles, your brothers, your sisters, your parents and finally your husband,
your wife, your boyfriend or your girlfriend.
You get them into
that backpack. And don’t worry. I’m not gonna ask you to light it on fire. Feel
the weight of that bag. Make no mistake – your relationships are the heaviest
components in your life. Do you feel the straps cutting into your shoulders?
All those
negotiations and arguments, and secrets and compromises. You don’t need to
carry all that weight. Why don’t you set that bag down? Some animals were meant
to carry each other, to live symbiotically for a lifetime – star crossed
lovers, monogamous swans. We are not those animals. The slower we move, the
faster we die. We are not swans. We’re sharks.