Somewhere, at some point, someone told me that no matter how large a person’s backpack is they will always find a way to fill it.
Now this doesn’t just apply to backpacks. Perhaps it’s more applicable when packing for a weekend trip and you’re bringing everything you might need just in case. Or filling a bowl with food. It feels funny putting a small amount of food in a big bowl.
If you have a small vessel, you’ll find a way to make it work. If you have a big vessel you’ll find a way to fill it.
There’s also the possibility that this is just a personality trait. Maximalists versus minimalists. Some people are light packers. I’m not a heavy packer but I will always fill the vessel.
And I’m the same with decor! My walls start off bare but as time goes on I start sticking things on that I know I’ll love to see everyday. Eventually the space turns into its own piece of art.
Tangent. Anyways. If I was writing this on a typewriter, this is where I’d reset the carriage. The carriage is the part that re-aligns the mini letter stamps to the start of the page. The carriage gets shifted with every letter pressed to make lines of text. Back to the backpack.
Often when someone is given a deadline, they put off doing the work until the pressure of the deadline begins to loom. I do this. And I know a lot of people who do this. And I honestly can’t name any that don’t, I assume they exist somewhere though, just not around me.
In a sense, the time spent putting something off is the same as packing in excess.
Time is the backpack and the time spent putting something off is the excess baggage.
The necessary time spent on an assignment is time you actually spend working on it, usually the last few days before the submission. The unnecessary time spent on an assignment is all the time leading up to those last few days. Until then, you carry the extra weight of knowing there is something that has to be done. This is baggage that weighs on you throughout your everyday travels, regardless of if you start working on it or not, until it’s done.
Often we fill our backpack of time with things we know we don’t need instead of doing the things we know we have to do. This is normal, we all do it and often beautiful things are born from the act of procrastination: a room gets cleaned, an idea is born, a drawing is drawn. Perhaps you had a list of chores you put off. Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t touch them, however now given the presence of a new much more daunting task, these ones are more digestible. And perhaps knocking them off your list is a way to 1) reassure yourself that you are capable of getting things done and 2) take some general weight of impending tasks off your back.
Discomfort and anxiety are normal. They are protocols from your brain and body to tell the conscious self to make a change.
And change is necessary for growth. And life thrives on growth (I don’t make the rules).
As humans we’ll always have a never ending list of things we feel like we have to get to.
And this is just inevitable because too much comfort leads to restlessness and lack of confidence. But too much discomfort leads to debilitation.
Kinda like how exercise is creating tiny tears in muscles to allow them to mend and grow back stronger but going way past what your body can handle will render a muscle unusable.
Fill the vessel, but don’t strain your back.
And weigh your bags before you get to check-in.
No one likes paying extra at check-in.