Packing My Bags

When packing your bags, be careful what you bring with you and what you choose to leave behind.

The primary quality of a genuinely happy person is the ability to let things go. Carrying resentment, pain, or distress over something someone said or did years ago keeps him or her trapped in a negative place. Carrying baggage from previous experiences causes a person relive drama daily and it leaves no room for growth or flexibility. Resilient people move on, own their own actions, realize the futility of trying to control other people's behaviors, and focus on the good aspects in one's life. No one else can make a person hostage to his or her past. Individuals are the jailers and have the power to keep themselves imprisoned or set themselves free.

I've noticed lately that the people in my life that seem the happiest in general are the ones who make a concerted effort to live in the present and move towards the future. They have a tendency to gloss over bad circumstances or instances that happened to them in the past and focus on the good things that have happened instead. It is not that they behave like ostriches with their heads in the sand as they don't avoid reality. They just choose the parts of their reality that they want to be meaningful and productive for them. It's unproductive to focus on all the slights, abuses, and injuries one has suffered throughout a life time. It drains a person's energy from being proactive. When a person harbors anger and resentment in their heart and mind, he or she leaves no room for anything else. In addition, that kind of negativity is caustic. It gradually destroys the healthy aspects of a person's emotions, thoughts, and physical health.

People hold onto pain for a variety of reasons. It becomes a familiar comfort. It allows for righteous indignation at having been wronged. It provides justification for behaving badly or irrationally because of previous victimization. No one, however, holds onto it because it feels good. Much like an addiction, most people realize it isn't a healthy thing to do, but they fall back on counting their wrongs to pacify all the uncomfortable feelings they hold about present circumstances, or their actions and thoughts.

A similarity I see in people who let go of things is that they have a tendency to attribute the wrongs to external reasons. It is not because they view themselves as bad people, unworthy, stupid, ugly or evil. They don't believe they deserve the terrible things that happen to them. They epitomize the adage, "Bad things happen to good people all the time." By externalizing the causation, it becomes easier to move beyond the injury. A person thinking everything is his or her fault is just as much of a type of narcissism as thinking all success is due to oneself. It's an unreal view of the world and the way in which a person impacts or moves within it. There is no distance between oneself and anything else. And as much as it is impossible that all good things can be attributed to one person, all bad things cannot be attributed to one person either.

In addition to attributing past pain to external factors, forgiveness is key to moving on. One never has to forget what happened, but one should forgive what happened. Forgive the circumstances, forgive the people involved and forgive oneself for being hurt or shamed. And then pick yourself up, embrace the future and move towards something productive and healthy. The past is what it is. It cannot be changed. The only factors a person can control in life is one's reactions to things, one's intentions, and one's actions. Everything else is superfluous and being so, not worthy of too much attention. By focusing on practical matters, on what can be done to improve one's life, and all the good things the world has to offer, one can learn to live happily and fruitfully.

At the beginning of the new year, carry only the memories and experiences that enhance your life, bring you joy, and make you a better person. When I packed my bags to travel into 2013, I left a lot of things behind. They didn't fit into the suitcase I chose to bring and I am completely satisfied with them gathering dust in last year's room. Eventually they will be completely obscured and much like a forgotten item left behind on vacation, we won't even remember what we once missed.