Letting Go Of Baggage

 Despite flight delays, crowded airports and TSA I still find vacation travel refreshing. It’s got me thinking about perspective. Glass half full? Hero or victim? Upon landing on one of our flights a middle-aged woman began jostling those ahead of her while talking on her cell phone and loudly saying, “Let me move forward. I’m missing my connecting flight.” Our flight had arrived early! Frustrating, yes! But you can pack that bad behaviour! Missing flights or being delayed is normal (more so post-covid it seems).

Ushered out of the terminal by police a crowd of us waited outside while security in flack jackets marched by with bomb-sniffing German shepherds on leash. This was my experience on another trip years ago. Once given the clear I headed back to the gate where I was told I’d missed my flight! “We called your name,” they said. “I was out on the curb with a hundred of my best friends,” I replied to no avail. Eventually a ticket agent assured me I’d have a ticket out on the next flight.

Travelling encourages me to experience the good in other people. The traveler stepping backward in line and graciously allowing us to take the spot in front of her. The tram attendant that grabbed our suitcases first (probably because we look feeble and in need of help) and insisted we find a seat before the bus filled up. The worker in the parking structure who gave me a ride on his golf cart so that I could get to our car and then go pick up the wife. There are these glimmers of other human beings that give me slight hope for my fellow humans. A very slight hope.

Purpose and attitude; it all comes down to those. Less escape than release and recalibration. The lady trampling down people to get out of the plane; what’s her purpose? One can only guess. Some bring all their baggage with them. Some leave it behind to calibrate and evaluate what to jettison when you return back home.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.”

                     Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

Five Steps To Refocusing Your Life

Determined or drifting?  Those are our two choices.  Life will throw curves.  We either re-calibrate or we drift.  Drifting is; at face value, easier.  Going along, reacting, coping.  If you are on track, then you can coast a while; that’s not drifting because you are heading toward your desired goal.  Drifting implies aimlessness.  Determination implies a stated target you are aiming at.

The Dillo household is re-calibrating.  We’re in process---don’t know if it’s a day, a season or a year.  We face aging and sick parents.  Work issues (tension and stress) are beyond normal this year; so that they bleed into our normal outside-of-work living (having to work to 10 pm; classroom with large population and beyond-bell curve behavior issues).  We left our church family of ten-years after communicating our concerns.  So we ask ourselves questions.  We wrestle with answers---take small steps.

Here are five small steps that may help you when refocusing your life:

1) Question. Ask yourself questions.  Have friends ask you questions.  What are you looking for?  What works?  What ignites the fire in your heart?  When deciding to leave our church we kept asking questions: What’s personal preference?  What’s scriptural?  What do we feel we’re missing?

     2) Get feedback from your community.  Vacuums suck.  Don’t make your decisions by yourself.  Get other people’s perspective.  Ask friends for input.  Ask enemies for input.  Get input.

     3)Set goals.  Brainstorm if you have to; set a bunch of goals. Soon you’ll recognize the ones that don’t apply. 

     4) Make the goals measurable.  There are a bunch of great techie tools to measure progress; word counters for books, heartbeat monitors for workouts.  I’ve found Strava to be a great training tool for solo workouts.

     5) Recognize the process.  Wrestle.  The answer probably won’t come overnight. I’m still trying to prioritize actions I take and activities I chuck.  Give yourself grace.