A Sense of Lightness

Today is Thanksgiving and I'm counting my blessings. I'm even trying to count the disappointments in life as special blessings. Today for example I've been thinking about a continual sense of heaviness that I've carried for a good deal of my life and how I can count it as a blessing.

Yes, I've struggled with weight loss to some degree but mostly the sense of heaviness has been a spiritual burden. I've realized though that a sense of lightness is more or less free. To feel light and free all you need to do is recognize the insignificance of most burdens. As the saying goes "choose your battles," and I would add "choose your burdens."

It may be uncomfortable to quit a job that offers no joy but in the long run and perhaps even in the short run it will be worth it because it, like most jobs without love, are insignificant except to teach us what is significant.

I remember one of the initial scenes in the movie "Wild" starring Reese Witherspoon. In the scene, her character is in her motel room packing a large hiking pack. To make the process easier she straps the large backpack on while lying down but when it's time to stand up she can't do it! I feel like life is similar....some of us for reasons I still don't understand choose to carry many burdens, and must learn sooner or later the lesson of "letting go" and the lesson of holding onto the things that are most valuable and hopefully not too heavy.