How to Pack a Backpack and Not Let Your Life Unravel
Professional backpackers know how it's done. They examine and weigh everything before they decide whether it's worth carrying. They already know what I continually have to relearn the hard way:
the longer the load is carried, the heavier it feels.
“Do you really need everything you've packed in here,” my husband asked as he lifted and lowered the backpack with one arm.
“If I didn't need everything that was in there, it wouldn't be in there,” I said with a defensive hiss while retrieving it from his hand and slipping my arms into each strap. The weight of it caused me to hunch over a bit, but I quickly corrected my posture so as not to be proven wrong.
Yes, the backpack felt a teensy bit on the heavier side, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. After all, I've carried four babies, each weighing nearly twenty pounds by the end of the seventh trimester. My back could handle a measly, slightly overpacked backpack. Pfft…
——
You would think, after the number of years I've been traveling around the globe, I'd be a professional backpacker by now. Packing suitcases—that I'm pretty stinking good at. Backpacks—I habitually make all the wrong choices.
On the contrary, actual professional backpackers know how it's done. They examine and weigh everything before they decide whether it's worth carrying. They already know what I continually have to relearn the hard way: the longer the load is carried, the heavier it feels. Even though you don't actually add anything to your pack, the weight can feel like too much to bear after several hours of lugging it around. And the thing about carrying a backpack full of stuff you really didn't need to be carrying around in the first place is that you don't have much will power left to handle even the smallest of inconveniences or hurdles that come at you.
What? You need me to bend over and tie your shoe? Seriously?
They changed the gate? Are you kidding me?
The escalator is broken and I have to walk up stairs now? I. Can't. Even.
I just spilled my coffee and it looks like I wet my pants and everyone just stop talking and WHY IS THIS BACKPACK A MILLION POUNDS?
——
It was a Friday evening. I was sitting on the bed with a TV show playing and my Friday night sushi waiting to be devoured. With chopsticks in position, I went for my first sushi roll. I picked it up and proceeded to dip it in some soy sauce when it slipped from my chopsticks. I continually tried to retrieve the sushi roll, but to no avail. It began to crumble to pieces and, as though I were watching a metaphor for my life play right before my eyes, I began to unravel as well.
When my sushi dissolved into my soy sauce and suddenly became California roll soup, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Maybe it was the stress of moving houses and adding 10,000 things to my to-do list or feeling horribly behind with homeschooling. It could have been that I'd been experiencing chronic, cringe-level pain with one of my teeth for the last nine months and had already sat in the dental chair three different times to have it worked on (once without anesthesia and I 100% don't recommend that experience.) Maybe it was the compounding stress of a pandemic and finding out how to get vaccinated as a foreigner and then trying to get set up on an app so I was allowed to enter shopping areas or travel to the capital city to see about my stupid tooth.
Whatever the reason (or maybe all of the above), the weight was bearing down and suddenly all the stress and pain and ever-growing to-do list felt like too much. My sushi couldn't hold itself together and neither could I.
——
There's no shortage for tips* on how to properly pack a backpack. As I read through them, it was very easy to see how these tips could carry over metaphorically into the loads we carry in our hearts and minds. So let’s discuss a few of these backpacking/life tips together, shall we?
“Pack for who you are and for the trip you're taking—not for who you wish you were or for the trip you think you should be taking.”
Hi, my name is Alicia and I usually think I'm going to be an avid reader every time I go somewhere. So, I pack three books and a journal (just in case I suddenly want to become a person who journals, too). How does this tip translate into our day-to-day lives? We often think about who we wish we were or where we want to be in life when we look at someone else's life. As a result, we add a lot of unnecessary expectations onto ourselves. I have to wake up at 5:00 am. to have a quiet time. I need to be reading a book every week. I should be sewing, cross-stitching, keeping my house plants alive, playing the piano, cooking dinner every night, signing a contract with a book publisher… and so on and so forth. I often think about this quote by Booker T. Washington when I start to feel overwhelmed: “start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.”
“Challenge assumptions about what you need.”
This tip is similar to another one that says, “adjust your gear for the area you're backpacking in.” Take a critical look at all you're carrying and what season of life you're in. Do you need it on your schedule right now? Can someone else carry it for you (i.e. can you ask for help, can you delegate, can it be outsourced)? Is there a particular thing taking up space and not allowing room for something you actually need right now? I recently listened to a podcast episode about guarding your peace. This is a great one to listen to if you need help challenging some assumptions about what you genuinely need in your life right now and what you need to stop carrying for the time being.
“Don't pack for maybe.”
I once had an English teacher who never let us ask what-if questions. It drove me crazy as a young middle-schooler, but now I get it. There's an infinite number of ways things can turn out for us at any given moment. We can play out all the scenarios and try to prepare ourselves for each of one them—but that's a lot to carry in our hearts and minds. “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes" (Matthew 6:34, MSG). Instead of carrying around a bunch of what ifs, replace all of them with one even if:
Even if ____ happens, God will be my present help in time of need.
“Develop your bare necessities list.”
What are your non-negotiables? Make a list of the things that belong in your metaphorical backpack. My husband often calls these bare necessities the large rocks that go in my jar first, and everything else is the sand that fills in around the essentials. I don't need to put sand in the jar first and then try to jam in the rocks because they might not fit. And if I don't have these bare necessities (which, for me, includes time in God's Word, quiet time to write, and the occasional break from my beloved children), I might as well be in the Fast Pass lane to Breakdown Town.
And finally…
“remember that just because you have extra space doesn't mean you should pack more.”
Oof. That one will preach. Not all free time and space has to be filled. Both an overpacked backpack and an overpacked schedule can be debilitating.
——
When our load is heavy and we're feeling weary, Jesus is holding the weight of it all in His hand and asking us, “do you really need to be carrying all this by yourself?” One way to respond is with a defensive hiss, claiming to be able to do it all.
Or we can go to Him with our weariness and our heavy load so He can give us the rest and relief we so desperately need.