Dear Thirty Year Old Me,
I am currently reading this book: The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. I love this book. It actually puts into words all of the divine experiences that I've had in my life that I am starting to notice more everyday. For me, one of the things that is resonating well is the idea of certainty in the divine purpose of our lives - and that it is meant to be joyful and full of love.
So as you sit there reading this letter, I want you to think of one of Gabrielle's exercises. Think of what you will be doing if you are certain and that you don't have any doubt about your purpose and the life that you're meant to live filled with love and joy. I have completed this exercise and here I share with you what I have come up with.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to honestly speak about how I feel.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to live a curious life.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to focus on gaining joyful and loving experiences instead of collecting material possessions.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to be grateful when I receive compliments.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to talk to strangers especially strangers I am attracted to.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to please myself and take care of my wants and needs before I take action to please others and take care of their wants and needs.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to identify my personal boundaries and communicate them to people I interact with.
Releasing doubt will give me the certainty and faith to act with spontaneity.
With Much Love,
The Forty Year Old You
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Job Satisfaction
Dear Thirty Year Old Me,
I want to share this exchange I had with one of our interns earlier this week. That meeting was actually profoundly satisfying but there was one question to which my answer I will share with you today.
The question - "What gives you the most satisfaction in your job? Is it the pay? The environment? The actual work?"
A tricky question to answer because I want to be as truthful as I can. Like many times in the past month since I learned of "Big Mind", I took 2 mindful breaths before I gave my response.
My response:
I would be lying if I tell you that I don't derive satisfaction from the compensation I have in my job but I can honestly say that it is not the primary source of my satisfaction. I would have to reflect and take an inventory of the days in a year when I experience extreme joy and satisfaction because of one facet of my job. For example - the other day, my boss was coaching me through a difficult decision that I have to make. My initial recommendation wasn't really a logical one so we ended up with a different proposal. All through out that interaction - he asked difficult questions. He listened to what I was saying. He made me felel important. After I hung up the phone - I felt a deep sense of gratitude for having the opportunity to work with a great boss like him.
I would also like to say that times like this one - when I am able to talk to people like you (referring to the interns) - gives me a great sense of satisfaction that I actually sometimes exclaim - I get paid to do this? I am so blessed.
The joy and the gratitude and the feeling of being blessed - I would say is equivalent to the joy and gratitude I feel when my boss hands me the letter once a year that declares - what my new compensation is for the year. Does this mean that I don't feel joyful when I see my payslip every payday? I do - but the deep joy is experienced only when I get that letter - after that - and I'm being honest here - I kinda expect that amount I get in the paycheck. So you see - I only experience extreme joy related to compensation - once a year.
Whereas the joy that gives me the experience of my hair standing on its end? I experience that a lot more often in the great interactions with my great colleagues. I experience that when I feel overwhelming satisfaction over a job well done or when I feel proud of my team's work.
So - for me - in conclusion - if I were to look at where I derive the satisfaction in my work that makes me want to get up in the morning excited - it is rare that I do it because of compensation. I do it most of the time because of the joy I get with working around people I respect and doing work that I love.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Do It For Yourself
Dear Thirty Year Old Me,
I just dyed my hair gray. Not blonde. Not light brown. Not black. I dyed it gray. You might be asking why I would do that when everyone who gets older - try to hide the silver gray hair that pops up as they age. Firstly - this is not silver gray. It's gray - without the silver. It's actually en vogue in 2016 - and more and more younger people are trying it out. Last weekend - I became one of those people.
The whole process took five hours. The stylist had to strip away as much color as she could from my hair - which means I had to go through three bleaching processes. After the bleaching process - my hair was white. Then she applied the ash-gray color. I could feel my hair screaming as we did this because it must have been a painful process for them. The day after - some of my hair strands fell off - which - is good enough reason for me to tell myself - that now that I've experienced this - never again will I do it.
How do I find my gray hair look? I love it. It just gave me an edgy look that I've never really experienced even when I was young. As you know - we've always tried trends but not to the extreme. In fact - dyeing my hair gray, I keep on telling myself that it still fits my overall look - unlike blonde - because everyone goes gray as they age. Unlike blonde - which I've always thought will never fit my skin tone.
How do people find the look? Almost everyone find it cool. All I can say is that I feel so much love from a lot of our friends and family. Them liking it is actually just extra for me because - in the end - I dyed my hair not to get people's approval. I dyed my hair because I was curious about the look and how I would be able to carry it.
Of course - there will be a small number of people who don't like it - and there's one lady who expressed that it made me look old. I've been reflecting on that comment - and as much as I try to say it doesn't bother me - I still want to give a tongue lashing at her. In fact I kinda did, I responded to her comment by saying, "It's a good thing that I am not doing this for you and I'm doing it for myself. I'm very satisfied with it - and that is all there is to it."
Tongue lashing or not - I just want to make sure that you get that message. In the end - the things that you want to do to yourself must be done from a place of curiosity and self compassion. You must understand that you are doing it for yourself - and no matter what other people say - that you still love yourself despite what they say. I'm starting to realize this as I age. In the end - I am the only person I need to satisfy for my own look or what I wear. Everyone else's opinion do not matter.
As I write this now - I've found a corollary to these words of wisdom. As much as I should not care what other people say about how I look, I should also not care about what other people do with their looks. That's a great learning for me because - I am a very judgmental person. I judge people based on their looks. I thought it made me cool --- but now i realize it just makes me an ass$#)(*Q&.
So - the next time you want to do something crazy - ask yourself - can you live with yourself regardless of the consequences of those actions? Don't care about what other people say - unless it actually has a direct impact on them. What matters most is what you think and how you feel about it. And - the corollary - mind your own business and if people make decisions that do not impact you or it does not cause injustice to another being --- you shouldn't care about it.
With Much Love,
The Forty Year Old You.
I just dyed my hair gray. Not blonde. Not light brown. Not black. I dyed it gray. You might be asking why I would do that when everyone who gets older - try to hide the silver gray hair that pops up as they age. Firstly - this is not silver gray. It's gray - without the silver. It's actually en vogue in 2016 - and more and more younger people are trying it out. Last weekend - I became one of those people.
The whole process took five hours. The stylist had to strip away as much color as she could from my hair - which means I had to go through three bleaching processes. After the bleaching process - my hair was white. Then she applied the ash-gray color. I could feel my hair screaming as we did this because it must have been a painful process for them. The day after - some of my hair strands fell off - which - is good enough reason for me to tell myself - that now that I've experienced this - never again will I do it.
How do I find my gray hair look? I love it. It just gave me an edgy look that I've never really experienced even when I was young. As you know - we've always tried trends but not to the extreme. In fact - dyeing my hair gray, I keep on telling myself that it still fits my overall look - unlike blonde - because everyone goes gray as they age. Unlike blonde - which I've always thought will never fit my skin tone.
How do people find the look? Almost everyone find it cool. All I can say is that I feel so much love from a lot of our friends and family. Them liking it is actually just extra for me because - in the end - I dyed my hair not to get people's approval. I dyed my hair because I was curious about the look and how I would be able to carry it.
Of course - there will be a small number of people who don't like it - and there's one lady who expressed that it made me look old. I've been reflecting on that comment - and as much as I try to say it doesn't bother me - I still want to give a tongue lashing at her. In fact I kinda did, I responded to her comment by saying, "It's a good thing that I am not doing this for you and I'm doing it for myself. I'm very satisfied with it - and that is all there is to it."
Tongue lashing or not - I just want to make sure that you get that message. In the end - the things that you want to do to yourself must be done from a place of curiosity and self compassion. You must understand that you are doing it for yourself - and no matter what other people say - that you still love yourself despite what they say. I'm starting to realize this as I age. In the end - I am the only person I need to satisfy for my own look or what I wear. Everyone else's opinion do not matter.
As I write this now - I've found a corollary to these words of wisdom. As much as I should not care what other people say about how I look, I should also not care about what other people do with their looks. That's a great learning for me because - I am a very judgmental person. I judge people based on their looks. I thought it made me cool --- but now i realize it just makes me an ass$#)(*Q&.
So - the next time you want to do something crazy - ask yourself - can you live with yourself regardless of the consequences of those actions? Don't care about what other people say - unless it actually has a direct impact on them. What matters most is what you think and how you feel about it. And - the corollary - mind your own business and if people make decisions that do not impact you or it does not cause injustice to another being --- you shouldn't care about it.
With Much Love,
The Forty Year Old You.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Just Believe
Dear Thirty Year Old Me,
One of my favorite authors: "Brene Brown" writes and talks about Gremlins. These refer to the voices that play out in our heads when we want to do something that exposes our vulnerable self. One of the Gremlin tapes is "You're not good enough." The other Gremlin tape is "Who do you think you are"?
I know these Gremlins all too well. I hear them when I work and I hear them when I try to meet up with men that I'm interested in. At work - it had been easy to shut them up. I guess - you can say that I've survived so many challenges at work - that I have learned to hustle my way through the situations which trigger the Gremlins' persistent nagging.
The challenge lies with my dating life. You see - I've grown up being told that I am an ugly fart. I've been told that I am not attractive. I have also had pimples on my face - and every movie out there where the protagonist is portrayed as ugly - has portrayed ugly with "artificial" pimples planted on their face. The thing is - it might be fake pimples for those actors and actresses - but that was my reality.
Just recently - when I asked someone "Why do you think I have not been in a relationship?" The response I got, "I think because your standards are too high." This response immediately hit my ego - and I retorted back, "But shouldn't I have standards? Should I just settle for someone even if I'm not attracted to them?" After the defensiveness faded - the Gremlins started talking and kept on telling me, "You're not good enough for the men that you like." And the other Gremlin kept on saying, "Why do you even try hitting on those attractive men, who you think you are?"
These voices - definitely torment me and can actually lead me to do stupid things. The actions I take fall into three categories. One - I numb the pain. I numb it often by shopping and buying things that I don't need or things that I think attractive people use or endorse in their commercials or instagram accounts. Two - I find validation from other people - usually by logging onto Grindr or other online dating apps and immersing myself in praises and adulation of men that I don't really like. The worst thing that I can do is to go on a date with these men - just to counter the pain I feel from feeling unattractive. Lastly - I do stupid things just to be noticed by the men that I find attractive - and making a fool of myself by pretending to be cool in front of them even if what I'm doing is clearly an awkward fit for how I'm perceived by most people.
But my dear friend - I want you to learn from my mistakes. The three actions that I have written above - is not how you deal with the pain and the torment of the Gremlins in your head. You must answer this question: "Whose voice do you think are the Gremlin voices coming from." What I mean by this is that - who is telling you "Who do you think you are?" Is it your Mom? Is it your Dad? Is it your best friend? At the moment in time that you think of these thoughts - who is physically telling you this? Isn't it that the answer to this is that - nobody but you? So the Gremlin voices are not external voices. They are voices coming from within. You are the one who is telling yourself that you are not good enough. To quiet those voices - you need to tell yourself to just shut up.
One too many times, all of us will hear other people say, "You must believe in yourself." It gets repeated so many times that we have actually thought that it's just something people say to make other people feel better - but it doesn't really mean anything. Recently, I have come to realize - that statement - as much as it is a cliche - has a lot of truth behind it. This is the reason why I hear it over and over again - because it is the universe telling me that it is a fundamental truth. To experience joy - true joy - in what we do in our careers and in what we do in our love life - we must believe in our self. We must believe that we are lovable and stop second guessing other people when they say that you are a being worthy of love - because we are. We are good enough. The Gremlins can continue to say what they want to say - but our resolution is strong enough to overcome those voices - until they sound like comedic small voices that are to be laughed at.
My friend - you will find that there will be times that you will meet people who will actually flat out reject you. The thing is the feedback that you get from those people is a reflection more of what they are thinking about the world that they live in and the world that they grew up in and it is not a reflection of you - you can be a magnificent beautiful unicorn - but someone who has been trampled on by unicorns when they were young may actually see you as a rhinoceros.
It may still take years for you to truly accept this universal truth that you are worthy of love. That's okay. It isn't important when you wake up from the bad dream that you're currently living. What is important is that you do wake up eventually. Listen to the universe as it sends messengers around you reinforcing the beauty that you possess. And when you wake up from the bad dream - I promise you, you will find the love that you have been searching for all your life.
With much Love,
The Forty Year Old You
One of my favorite authors: "Brene Brown" writes and talks about Gremlins. These refer to the voices that play out in our heads when we want to do something that exposes our vulnerable self. One of the Gremlin tapes is "You're not good enough." The other Gremlin tape is "Who do you think you are"?
I know these Gremlins all too well. I hear them when I work and I hear them when I try to meet up with men that I'm interested in. At work - it had been easy to shut them up. I guess - you can say that I've survived so many challenges at work - that I have learned to hustle my way through the situations which trigger the Gremlins' persistent nagging.
The challenge lies with my dating life. You see - I've grown up being told that I am an ugly fart. I've been told that I am not attractive. I have also had pimples on my face - and every movie out there where the protagonist is portrayed as ugly - has portrayed ugly with "artificial" pimples planted on their face. The thing is - it might be fake pimples for those actors and actresses - but that was my reality.
Just recently - when I asked someone "Why do you think I have not been in a relationship?" The response I got, "I think because your standards are too high." This response immediately hit my ego - and I retorted back, "But shouldn't I have standards? Should I just settle for someone even if I'm not attracted to them?" After the defensiveness faded - the Gremlins started talking and kept on telling me, "You're not good enough for the men that you like." And the other Gremlin kept on saying, "Why do you even try hitting on those attractive men, who you think you are?"
These voices - definitely torment me and can actually lead me to do stupid things. The actions I take fall into three categories. One - I numb the pain. I numb it often by shopping and buying things that I don't need or things that I think attractive people use or endorse in their commercials or instagram accounts. Two - I find validation from other people - usually by logging onto Grindr or other online dating apps and immersing myself in praises and adulation of men that I don't really like. The worst thing that I can do is to go on a date with these men - just to counter the pain I feel from feeling unattractive. Lastly - I do stupid things just to be noticed by the men that I find attractive - and making a fool of myself by pretending to be cool in front of them even if what I'm doing is clearly an awkward fit for how I'm perceived by most people.
But my dear friend - I want you to learn from my mistakes. The three actions that I have written above - is not how you deal with the pain and the torment of the Gremlins in your head. You must answer this question: "Whose voice do you think are the Gremlin voices coming from." What I mean by this is that - who is telling you "Who do you think you are?" Is it your Mom? Is it your Dad? Is it your best friend? At the moment in time that you think of these thoughts - who is physically telling you this? Isn't it that the answer to this is that - nobody but you? So the Gremlin voices are not external voices. They are voices coming from within. You are the one who is telling yourself that you are not good enough. To quiet those voices - you need to tell yourself to just shut up.
One too many times, all of us will hear other people say, "You must believe in yourself." It gets repeated so many times that we have actually thought that it's just something people say to make other people feel better - but it doesn't really mean anything. Recently, I have come to realize - that statement - as much as it is a cliche - has a lot of truth behind it. This is the reason why I hear it over and over again - because it is the universe telling me that it is a fundamental truth. To experience joy - true joy - in what we do in our careers and in what we do in our love life - we must believe in our self. We must believe that we are lovable and stop second guessing other people when they say that you are a being worthy of love - because we are. We are good enough. The Gremlins can continue to say what they want to say - but our resolution is strong enough to overcome those voices - until they sound like comedic small voices that are to be laughed at.
My friend - you will find that there will be times that you will meet people who will actually flat out reject you. The thing is the feedback that you get from those people is a reflection more of what they are thinking about the world that they live in and the world that they grew up in and it is not a reflection of you - you can be a magnificent beautiful unicorn - but someone who has been trampled on by unicorns when they were young may actually see you as a rhinoceros.
It may still take years for you to truly accept this universal truth that you are worthy of love. That's okay. It isn't important when you wake up from the bad dream that you're currently living. What is important is that you do wake up eventually. Listen to the universe as it sends messengers around you reinforcing the beauty that you possess. And when you wake up from the bad dream - I promise you, you will find the love that you have been searching for all your life.
With much Love,
The Forty Year Old You
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Fall in Love More Often
Dear Thirty Year Old Me
You don't fall in love often. You actually fall in love only when you decide that it's time to fall in love. The problem of course that you encounter with that premise is that - because you are opent ot falling in love at that time - the poor soul that you direct that affection towards becomes the receipient of this longing energy.
Here's the thing - you are actually a very attractive man. DOn't let all the rejections you have previously received fool you. YOu are attractive - but everytime you fall in love - you become unattractive in the eyes of the person you fall in love with.
The unattractiveness is not physical. It actually has something to do with the energy that you bring foth which makes you not whole.
YOu are not whole because you tend to communicate that you are unwhole unless you actually get the affection of the person of your affection.
SO - this is my advice to you. The next time you fall in love. Cherish the feeling. But make sure that you understand that you don't need the object of your affection to return that feeling for you to cherish the beauty that you experiene from that feeling.
You are definitely more than the desire for that feeling to be returned towards you.
THe other advice I have for you - is that you must fall in love more often. That's the only way you can practice the appropriate skills that should come your way when you fall in love. The skill of expressing your affection. The skill of reining in the feeling. The skill of dealing with the rejection.
fall in love often - and one day - the object of your affection will return that affection your way.
With most love
The forty year old you
You don't fall in love often. You actually fall in love only when you decide that it's time to fall in love. The problem of course that you encounter with that premise is that - because you are opent ot falling in love at that time - the poor soul that you direct that affection towards becomes the receipient of this longing energy.
Here's the thing - you are actually a very attractive man. DOn't let all the rejections you have previously received fool you. YOu are attractive - but everytime you fall in love - you become unattractive in the eyes of the person you fall in love with.
The unattractiveness is not physical. It actually has something to do with the energy that you bring foth which makes you not whole.
YOu are not whole because you tend to communicate that you are unwhole unless you actually get the affection of the person of your affection.
SO - this is my advice to you. The next time you fall in love. Cherish the feeling. But make sure that you understand that you don't need the object of your affection to return that feeling for you to cherish the beauty that you experiene from that feeling.
You are definitely more than the desire for that feeling to be returned towards you.
THe other advice I have for you - is that you must fall in love more often. That's the only way you can practice the appropriate skills that should come your way when you fall in love. The skill of expressing your affection. The skill of reining in the feeling. The skill of dealing with the rejection.
fall in love often - and one day - the object of your affection will return that affection your way.
With most love
The forty year old you
Monday, January 9, 2017
Jump Off a Cliff
Dear Thirty-Year-Old-Me,
You live in a lot of fear. There's just so much of them that seems to drive your life. It can be as catastrophic as the fear of getting on a plane ( which - congratulations - you still get on a plane even if it scares you ). It can be as mundane as the fear of opening your e-mail and reading a customer complaining about the service that he/she received from your team.
You are one ball of fear - electrified so much that mostly - you just decide not to do anything that you think you don't need to. Decisions are being made for you by other people or you actually just end up in a conundrum that you just have no choice but to do something.
The good news is that - you seem to have guardian angels that make your life still interesting even if you are not in charge of it. So all is well and good for you.
Here's the thing - one day - in your forties - you will wake up that you finally want to explore being brave.
Most people actually think that your recent actions are just products of the mid-life crisis. I bet you are being washed over by shame at the thought of you falling into the typical definition of someone in his middle age - and gallivanting around town with orange hair or an m&m colored Ferrari. I have news for you kid - you are that guy. You don't have orange hair - but your hair is styled like the teenager that you never were.
I don't know how it started - but I know when you actually realized that fear can be conquered. It started when you jumped off a 20-foot cliff in Siquijor - the land of the witches. That trip was magical. You know that you don't like planning vacations - but in this particular case - you decided to book the trip and asked your best friend if she wanted to come. You loved the trip ( and your best friend hated it ). That trip transformed a lot of your perspectives about life.
So going back to the 20-foot-cliff jump. You were scared to jump. You actually jumped off a 10-foot water fall that morning - and that jump actually hurt and you felt stupid after that because it was kind of hard to swim back to shore after that jump. So you thought to yourself that afternoon - do I really want to risk this jump?
When the time came for you to jump - you actually brought into your mind the following dialogue - inspired by one of your favorite authors: Elizabeth Gilbert - when she talks about fear. This is what you told fear:
"Mr. Fear. Thank you for coming with me in this journey. Like most days - I really have to give it to you because you are doing an exceptional job of telling me that what I'm about to do is stupid. Here's the thing - I am actually very much curious about the outcome of me jumping off this cliff. That curiosity is so strong that I know I would forever regret this opportunity to jump if I listen to you. So again - I thank you for coming along - but I got to say - I got this. I will jump off this cliff."
After saying that in your head - you stepped off the ledge. Nope - you didn't jump. You just stepped off the ledge and let gravity do it's job. When your body hit the water - it was still painful and you ended up with a sore shoulder for weeks. But I tell you - the euphoric feeling that you experienced as you traveled on air and as you hit the water --- there's no other feeling that matches that. It was a great feeling.
With the experience of jumping off the cliff - that became a metaphor for a lot of the things that you decided to do after that. For example - you wanted to see how you will look with light brown hair. So you decided to just do it. You decided to ask that good looking guy out - so you did. You wanted to go to a leadership training and ask your boss to sponsor the training - so you asked.
Maybe you are indeed going through mid-life crisis now in your forties. I'm telling you - crisis it may be --- it's one helluva ride that you're going through. If - you find this inspiration a lot earlier in your life - listen to that inspiration. I'd be very much interested in what the outcome will be if you listen to it earlier.
With so Much Love,
The Forty Year Old You
You live in a lot of fear. There's just so much of them that seems to drive your life. It can be as catastrophic as the fear of getting on a plane ( which - congratulations - you still get on a plane even if it scares you ). It can be as mundane as the fear of opening your e-mail and reading a customer complaining about the service that he/she received from your team.
You are one ball of fear - electrified so much that mostly - you just decide not to do anything that you think you don't need to. Decisions are being made for you by other people or you actually just end up in a conundrum that you just have no choice but to do something.
The good news is that - you seem to have guardian angels that make your life still interesting even if you are not in charge of it. So all is well and good for you.
Here's the thing - one day - in your forties - you will wake up that you finally want to explore being brave.
Most people actually think that your recent actions are just products of the mid-life crisis. I bet you are being washed over by shame at the thought of you falling into the typical definition of someone in his middle age - and gallivanting around town with orange hair or an m&m colored Ferrari. I have news for you kid - you are that guy. You don't have orange hair - but your hair is styled like the teenager that you never were.
I don't know how it started - but I know when you actually realized that fear can be conquered. It started when you jumped off a 20-foot cliff in Siquijor - the land of the witches. That trip was magical. You know that you don't like planning vacations - but in this particular case - you decided to book the trip and asked your best friend if she wanted to come. You loved the trip ( and your best friend hated it ). That trip transformed a lot of your perspectives about life.
So going back to the 20-foot-cliff jump. You were scared to jump. You actually jumped off a 10-foot water fall that morning - and that jump actually hurt and you felt stupid after that because it was kind of hard to swim back to shore after that jump. So you thought to yourself that afternoon - do I really want to risk this jump?
When the time came for you to jump - you actually brought into your mind the following dialogue - inspired by one of your favorite authors: Elizabeth Gilbert - when she talks about fear. This is what you told fear:
"Mr. Fear. Thank you for coming with me in this journey. Like most days - I really have to give it to you because you are doing an exceptional job of telling me that what I'm about to do is stupid. Here's the thing - I am actually very much curious about the outcome of me jumping off this cliff. That curiosity is so strong that I know I would forever regret this opportunity to jump if I listen to you. So again - I thank you for coming along - but I got to say - I got this. I will jump off this cliff."
After saying that in your head - you stepped off the ledge. Nope - you didn't jump. You just stepped off the ledge and let gravity do it's job. When your body hit the water - it was still painful and you ended up with a sore shoulder for weeks. But I tell you - the euphoric feeling that you experienced as you traveled on air and as you hit the water --- there's no other feeling that matches that. It was a great feeling.
With the experience of jumping off the cliff - that became a metaphor for a lot of the things that you decided to do after that. For example - you wanted to see how you will look with light brown hair. So you decided to just do it. You decided to ask that good looking guy out - so you did. You wanted to go to a leadership training and ask your boss to sponsor the training - so you asked.
Maybe you are indeed going through mid-life crisis now in your forties. I'm telling you - crisis it may be --- it's one helluva ride that you're going through. If - you find this inspiration a lot earlier in your life - listen to that inspiration. I'd be very much interested in what the outcome will be if you listen to it earlier.
With so Much Love,
The Forty Year Old You
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Baggage
“You have so much baggage.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“Honey, you have so much baggage - or luggage - or whatever the English language calls all of these bags in your attic.”
I can’t believe that the voice in my head is nagging me about the bags in my attic. I admit - I have many bags - but I have an excuse - I travel a lot for business and each one of those bags have served me well in my trips. Of course - I’m lying - at most the sport trunk from Rimowa and the in-cabin trolley from Samsonite are the most utilized bags - and all the others are there in case I have a special trip that will require me to use it.
For example - for trips to the beach - the soft-side blue bag that I bought when I had too much stuff to carry in one of my trips to India - is the perfect bag. It’s the lightest bag that I have and when I don’t want to have any checked luggage for those four day trips to Boracay - it’s the perfect bag.
The red clamshell Samsonite bag is perfect when I am traveling to Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Malaysia. You see - the number of clothes that I take to my international trips is directly proportional to the number of miles that I will earn for that trip. So the Rimowa trunk is the right size for US and European trips. The Samsonite bag is the perfect size for trips around Asia.
“I don’t have too much baggage. I just have enough for the demanding travel that I do for my job.” I am now yelling at the disapproving voice in my head. As if yelling at the voice will silence it.
“What about this green bag? Why do you keep this?”
Oh. That bag. I can’t believe you spotted that, you sneaky voice-in-my-head. I hid that behind all of these boxes because it’s a reminder of a temporary lapse in my judgment during a trip to KL. I bought one too many skinny jeans in KL - and they would not fit in the Samsonite - so I bought that ugh-ly bag so I can carry all of my wonderful skinny jeans (which by the way are now too big for me because I lost a lot of weight since I bought them).
“Why hide it? You can give that bag away.”
Give it away? Oh no - I can’t - for two reasons. I don’t need someone to suffer from my poor choices. It’s an ugly color of puke-green. Who would want such a bag? What will they think of me when I give it to them? I don’t want to be judged as the guy with a poor taste in bags. I can’t accept receiving judgment from people who I will be charitable to.
“But your sister asked to have it because she noticed you have not used it since you bought it. So clearly - she wants it.”
That’s my second reason. I’ve been too generous this year. I have given to charity. I’ve donated money to our High School alumni association for that animal laboratory. A large part of my salary is spent on paying for the debt that I have taken for my niece’s treatment two years ago. So - I refuse to give more dole-outs this year because to be honest - I’m tired of giving.
Then there was silence. A long one. An uncomfortable one - which I just had to break.
“What? Say something!”
“You have too much baggage.” The tone of the voice is a lot softer now.
“I don’t have too much. I just have enough.” I screamed.
The voice seem to have let out a sigh.
“I’m not referring to the bags, honey.”
Silence again. This time, I didn’t break it. I just sat there. I agreed with the voice.
I have too much baggage.
So I picked up my phone. Started texting.
“Hey. Do you remember that olive green bag that you asked to borrow during your last visit? I can give it to you. I know you need it and it seems like you wanted it.”
I have too much baggage - and I needed to start letting go of the shitty baggage. They no longer serve me.
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