What Am I Carrying?

“I feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.”

We’ve probably all said some version of it.

Usually we mean there’s too much going on. Too many responsibilities. Too many problems. Too many things demanding our attention at the same time.

But I’ve been thinking about that phrase a little differently.

How much of that weight is actually mine?

Sometimes life feels heavy because life is heavy. There are responsibilities, decisions, problems and emotions that genuinely belong to us.

But then we start adding to the load.

What someone said to me.

How they reacted.

What I wish I would’ve said.

What happened yesterday.

What might happen tomorrow.

Whether someone is disappointed in me.

Whether something is going to work out the way I want it to.

Before long, I’m not just carrying what’s mine.

I’m carrying everything.

And when that happens, I think there are two questions worth asking:

What am I carrying?

And then:

Is all of it mine?

Mine | Not Mine

We’ve all heard the advice: control what you can control.

It’s good advice.

It’s also a hell of a lot easier to say than it is to do.

Because when emotions are involved, the line between what belongs to us and what belongs to someone else can get blurry.

So I’ve started thinking about it differently.

Two columns.

MINE | NOT MINE

My words? Mine.

Someone else’s reaction? Not mine.

My actions? Mine.

Someone else’s behavior? Not mine.

My effort? Mine.

The outcome? Not entirely mine.

My next choice? Mine.

The past? Not mine to change.

How I show up? Mine.

What someone else thinks of me? Not mine.

There’s something freeing about seeing it that way.

The things in the second column can still be incredibly important to me.

“Not mine” doesn’t mean “doesn’t matter.” It means “isn’t mine to control.”

That’s an important difference.

What Belongs to Me?

I can care deeply about how another person feels.

Their feelings still aren’t mine to control.

What is mine is how I treat them.

I can care deeply about the outcome of something.

I still can’t guarantee that outcome.

What is mine is the effort I put into it.

I can wish something in the past had happened differently.

I can’t go back and change it.

What is mine is what I choose to do next.

I can want someone to understand me.

I can’t control whether they do.

What is mine is whether I communicate honestly.

I think this is where we can exhaust ourselves.

We’re carrying our own responsibilities and then picking up everybody else’s too.

Caring about someone doesn’t make their burden ours to carry.

Riding the Baseline

I’ve been writing a lot about riding the baseline—learning to experience emotion without automatically allowing that emotion to decide what happens next.

I think what we carry is part of that.

Because sometimes getting back toward baseline isn’t about calming yourself down. It’s about realizing you’re carrying six things and only two of them actually belong to you.

Sometimes the first thing I need isn’t to change how I’m feeling.

I need to look at what’s contributing to the load.

What actually belongs to me?

And what have I taken responsibility for that belongs in the other column?

Recognizing that doesn’t mean I’ll immediately be able to put it down.

That’s not how being human works.

But I can notice it.

Awareness always comes before change.

What’s Mine Here?

Maybe that’s the practice.

When everything starts feeling like too much, we don’t necessarily need to figure out how to carry all of it.

We can pause.

Name what’s weighing on you.

Then ask:

What’s mine here?

My actions.

My words.

My effort.

My boundaries.

My response.

My next choice.

How I show up.

That’s where my energy belongs.

I can still care deeply about the things that aren’t mine.

I may still be affected by them. I may still wish I could change them.

But maybe some of what I’ve been carrying really does belong to the world—not to me.

And maybe the answer to feeling like I’m carrying the weight of the world isn’t learning how to carry more.

Maybe it’s learning what I can put down.