...on heavy lifting!

My dearest readers,

a good friend recently told me about his new-found determination in life and career and how no one would stop him anymore, at least not himself. It delighted my to see such finesse, such awe-inspiring astuteness to defy former aggravating circumstances—and all of that coming from someone of whom I always spoke highly whenever I saw the audacity and passion he carried along for all of my grad and most of my undergrad time. Nothing is but what is not…but it must be lifted and carried!

I often wrote about the way we must walk, or the path we have to stay on; but what you cannot ignore is the weight you must carry all along. I wrote about the obstacles we have to overcome, but never wrote about the burden that is tied onto our backs. And neither did I write about the load we’ve piled up over the course of our lives, lives that bear nothing but onerous responsibilities. And in the midst of walking through our lives we are heavily laden with frustration, anger, rage, disappointment after disappointment, being shut down and out, being convinced or told one is not good enough—pick one or two or more, the ones you tend and are told to carry.

But with our entire burden we are given a chance to grow. The longer we carry that load, the longer we’re forced to lift it, the longer we feel the weight of the world, of our worlds, on our shoulders, the stronger we grow over time. Alexandra Bracken once wrote she were “coming to see the heavier your heart got, the stronger you had to be to keep carrying it around.” There might be people around you who are more privileged with a smaller torch to carry, but the gigantic torch you’ve carried all along, all that time, will at some point shine brighter than you can fathom, than anyone can fathom. Carry it with pride and sense of purpose, for then you get to light it and have it shine as beautiful as a sea of candles floating downstream on a river. Let your load be your inspiration, your weights on the bar when you’re all fired up to lift like there is no tomorrow.

It is a tremendous, unimaginable number of tons we’re dragging along, and there’s no end in sight, for “[w]e are all tied to the burdens of this existence, and it seems as if everyday renewal is occurring in our lives and those around us” (Kat Lahr). If you recall the very first post of #MomentumToGo, you may have felt that it all sags like a heavy load, or does it explode, that deferred dream, that once-highly-regarded motivation of an ambitious you, or that fading confidence of a private who first waded his or her way through basic training only to find out that it was just the beginning of more things they carried.

It is not only the way, the distance we have to travel that determines who we are and how we handle it, but it is also the number of checked bags that must get to the final destination. Can you be Atlas, the son of invincible spirit, when you board that plane and take your luggage with you all the way? Welcome aboard, but be aware that in life often nothing is, but what is not, because this load you’re carrying is life, your life, and your heavy load. Lift it, carry it, and don’t stop believing that your time will come, your time to light that Olympic torch of yours and make it shine for the whole world to see! #DoYouEvenLift