As a rule, I do not carry things for people when travelling – you know the usual ask, especially if you are from my part of the world. It could be clothing, foodstuff or even worse, just the vague “my sister will bring something to you, please help me bring it “.
If you are my friend and you really want an item, I can buy it for you and bring it along being that I am the primary person who purchased it and can vouch for its content, other than that, I simply will not carry it.
Why? You may ask.
Well for one, I have a very long and fruitful life to live, I do not want anything about my life derailed or sabotaged, as some accidentally have, simply because of a penchant to help or the inability to say no.
Secondly and perhaps most importantly, there is this question you are asked at the airport as you check in your luggage and that question is “Did you pack your bags yourself?”
Once your answer is yes, you have assumed total and complete agency and responsibility for what is in your possession regardless of who handed it over to you.
Now let’s get to the meat of it because if you know me, you know I’m not really here to talk about luggage or travel J
As it is with the airport, so it is with life.
While you wait at life’s gate to board the flight to your desired destination, many people and various seasons of your life may have given you stuff to carry for them. Take a closer look at your life- did you pack your bags yourself?
That insecurity you call yours, was it always yours? The imposter syndrome that rears its head when you are finally in places you prayed to be, did you pack that yourself too?
Did you really think it was ideal to pack a sense of unworthiness for your journey? Did it really serve you to pack ‘All men cheat ‘or ‘Fear Women’?
Was it you who decided to pack the term middle class or middle- income earner into your luggage heavily garnished with the constant repeated declaration of “I’m not good at managing money”?
Or wait, lets deal with the more subtle items you may have packed like “I am a starter not a finisher”. Does that ring a bell? Some items were handed over to you, others snuck into your bag unnoticed like being the giver, but hardly ever the receiver. Did you agree to pack that too?
When push comes to shove, you are chief responsibility officer and since boarding and jetting off to the life you REALLY desire may have proved somewhat tedious for you, let me ask you this simple question again :
Did you pack your bags yourself?
Along with you for the journey …till water becomes steam.
Your Coach,
Mfon Ekpo
