This week’s Harmony Project essay from Tom Van Wyen asks a question worth sitting with: on the journey of life, what are you carrying? Tom starts from the old Taoist line that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step — and adds the thought that before we take that step, we ought to check what’s in our pack.
Tom tells of watching a fellow traveler at the airport frantically unpacking an overweight suitcase, tossing aside things that never needed to be in it. He figures our lives work the same way. We all haul around a suitcase of beliefs, habits, attitudes, ambitions, virtues — and burdens. Some help us reach our destination; others just weigh us down.
In the essay, Tom opens his own pack for inspection. In go the essentials he has learned to carry: integrity, humility, courage, compassion, gratitude, perseverance, and wisdom — the last being the first thing he reaches for each morning. And out come the things that never belonged: pride, resentment, envy, cynicism, fear.
It’s a short read with a long aftertaste, and it leaves you with the question Tom poses at the end: if your pack can hold only so much, what will you remove to make room for what matters? The full essay is linked below — worth a few quiet minutes of your morning.
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