Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage

Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage

<DIV><P><B>Carrying baggage you don't need? </B></P><P></P><P>When I was in college, I figured my life would come together around graduation. I’d meet a guy, have a beautiful wedding, and we'd buy a nice little house—not necessarily with a picket fence, but with whatever kind of fence we wanted. Whatever we decided, I would be happy.</P><P></P><P>When I got out of college and my life didn’t look like that, I floundered, trying to get the life I had always dreamed of through career, travel, and relationships. But none of them satisfied me as I hoped. Like many twentysomethings, I tried to discover the life of my dreams, but instead I just kept <I>accumulating baggage</I>—school loans, electronics I couldn’t afford, hurt from broken relationships, and unmet expectations for what life was “supposed to be” like.</P><P></P><P>Just when I had given up all hope of finding the “life I’d always dreamed about,” I decided to take a trip to all fifty states . . . because when you go on a trip, you can’t take your baggage. What I found was that “packing light” wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.</P><P></P><P>This is the story of my trip and learning to live life with less baggage.</P></DIV>