How Big is Your Backpack???

For a while now I have been noticing a statement floating around on social media that goes something like this:  "Be Kind to Everyone Because Everyone is Fighting Some Kind of Battle".  I tend to brush this off and smugly think to myself - yeah I just bet.    Ugh - I don't like that side of myself and I have to work hard to fight it.  I know it might be human nature, to some some extent, to think and believe that we are the only ones - no one else could be going through what I am or as much as I am.

Unfortunately there are many things to quickly snap us out of that frame of thought.  Each and every day I am reminded how very difficult and gut wrenching the problems of others I know are.  I started thinking about something that my Hubby always says.  He tells me quite frequently that we don't know what others are carrying in their backpack - their hypothetical metaphorical backpack that is. This is the place where all of your problems, worries, fears - real or imagined live.  From there my thinking went to - what if we could see every body's backpack - immediately see what others are carrying around in their lives.  We might complain less and feel more empathy and focus less on the weight of our own.  Of course there are always going to be those who have a very light pack and don't even realize it.  We can't change that so we just have to change how we see them and or deal with them.

Even further into that thinking, I thought about how each individual's bricks are weighted by their own experiences.  For example someone I know might have a brick labeled divorce and I might think it's not a horrific thing because mine was years ago and all of the pain has faded.  But theirs may be fresh and new and still causing gut wrenching pain.  Therefore not only are we carrying around these bricks but they morph and change in weight and pain over time.   Some days the bag is lighter for reasons only we may know.  Other days we can barely get out of bed and pick up the bag - it is just too heavy and the pain of the weight far too much.

All of these metaphors apply to a chronic illness as well.  It is definitely a weighty brick in the bags of those of us who carry it and the size, shape and weight of that brick changes hourly, daily, weekly and for the most part it is ever changing.  For most of us, the backpack will always be invisible and we will have to rely on the kindness of others to understand what we are carrying.  We will also need to try and envision the backpacks of others we come into contact with, friends, family, strangers and understand that while we may never know what they carry, we can try to understand and empathize with the fact that we all - every single one of us carries something.  Only we know the true weight.