What Is The Weight You Carry?

What Is The Weight You Carry?

A few, or several who’s counting, blog posts ago I made a post about counting your blessings. I didn’t put it in those terms, I think I said victories or something of the like but the point was that often we are more successful than we realize but we ignore or miss the things we do well, the things that are going well for us.

This is much the same, though in reverse. However I feel it may lead to the same result.

Count your “burdens”. And it may seem a silly thing to say, people often fixate on their burdens, their short comings, the flaws and mistakes of their lives. However I find people do not often really comprehend their own struggles, their difficulties.

I have many friends who think they are weak because they struggle to do things others find easy and may even collapse under the stress of what you or I may call a simple thing. However without exception the reverse is true.

I am, probably, a neurotypical entity raised in a caring environment and supported financially such that I never knew poverty. This isn’t a boast, this is just an accurate accounting for history.

Many people do not have those things, so they are carrying the weight of depression, anxiety, poverty, neurodivergence, social ostracization, and a host of other maladies that your average person either does not deal with or only deals with in passing. When someone in such a situation is burdened with the weight of something “minor” like getting out of bed to get to work on time they are not shouldering just that burden but multitudes of others.

And one can carry this weight so long that they feel that it is no weight, or worse that they deserve this burden. A person in such a state will look at their missteps and feel they are weak, less than their peers because they cannot do this simple thing.

And the opposite is true. Such a person is carrying an immense weight and its important that they, that you, recognize that.

Understanding how much you carry helps you properly pace your actions, set realistic expectations of yourself, and give yourself the rest and find the support you need. Too many people overly burden themselves because they feel they have no right to get the support or allow themselves the space they need to be healthy.

And maybe, just maybe, if you look at your burdens and tally the weight you heap upon your shoulders you will realize some of it does not need to be there. That you can set it down, or that it was never there to begin with.

So, yes, ask yourself “what is the weight I carry?” How much can you put down, and how much credit are you denying yourself for not realizing how strong you really are?

Take care my friends and God bless;

~S. Wallace