Chapter 183: All bags you watch – are yours!

– I know exactly how you feel, J. – Coco and I are running through the rice fields of Minhang.

– You do? – Stupid question. She always does!

– Not sure it still happens anywhere nowadays; but once upon a time, in another life, where people were less frightened, someone could ask you to watch over their bags for a minute.

– What do you mean?

– I know, it sounds unbelievable, but someone at the train station or on the beach could ask you to watch over their bags for a minute until they are back…

– And?

– Well, you would agree …

– Really?

– Yes, you would agree as it was very common, and sometimes you would spend ages watching over their bags. People would get into some kind of time-trouble, and what supposed to be only few minutes, would turn into three hours or half a day of waiting…

– This is terrible!

– It feels terrible, yes. You are standing there, with some irrelevant bags of some person you do not even know… And … you can’t leave. Your sense of responsibility, your honesty, your integrity keeps you there. And at the same time your inner Deserve-It-Troll is trolling about you being stupid; saying something around the lines that you should not have accepted the bags in the first place, that you always want to be nice to people and people take advantage of you, blah blah blah… Yeah! Poor you.

– Why are you telling me this story Coco?

– Because I need you to understand that there is another way.

– What way? Not accepting any bags?

– This is not the way. We accept a lot of different bags in our life. The trick is to understand that once you have accepted them – they are YOURS. So rather than standing around, waiting for someone to relieve your pain – put your bags on your shoulder and walk through your life. Most of the time those bags are not heavy anyway. And who knows what great things may be inside!

– I do not understand…

– Stop dramatizing people not meeting your expectations! By doing so you resemble a person watching over someone’s bags on the train station. Years have passed, the bag owner went to the Moon and back, while you are still waiting. Move! Laugh! Be grateful to live and to have some bags to carry!