The Hypothetical Suitcase

The title may seem like the title of one of my poems rather than an article, but truly it’s also important to talk about this in a long ramble of words that don’t necessarily rhyme.

Recently, I have done a couple of counselling sessions to work on myself and feel more comfortable stepping out of the good old comfort zone. Easily written, but harder to do when it comes to digging into the memories of a young teenage version of me who couldn’t care less about the real world but preferred an escape to the fictional world.

There were many valuable exercises and lessons learnt during these sessions but one, in particular, stuck inside my mind and I kept coming back to it. I am a sucker for good analogy or metaphor but I’m also forgetful of them. So, the fact that I can remember one and apply it to more than one aspect of my life means a fair bit. Here comes the Hypothetical Suitcase.

Photo by Iurii Melentsov on Unsplash

Let’s imagine a suitcase – this suitcase represents everything that we carry through life – everything that makes each individual different. It consists of our memories, feelings, and life lessons but also our character, how we are, and how we interact with own self and others. Now imagine you’ve been carrying this hypothetical suitcase around your whole life – ever since you were a little kid looking at the world in a much different way than in your 20s or 30s. Have you ever stopped, wondered, opened the suitcase, and questioned what was inside of it?

Most of us wouldn’t – after all these are the experiences that make us unique people. However, sometimes just like when packing on a ho

liday, you put those unnecessary things in there. Things you know you don’t need but they will have a tiny space in the suitcase anyway. Sometimes it’s not even yourself putting those items in there because who packs this hypothetical suitcase? You and all the people around you. You equally affect yourselves. These items either packed by yourself or your close ones, most often with good intentions, can take up space and make the suitcase too heavy to carry in the long run.

If you dive deep into your thoughts, you will realise how many unnecessary things you’re just dragging along. Some of them are heavier, so they require some help taking them out, some of them are not so heavy but just forgotten and ignored.

My hypothetical suitcase has many great things – amazing experiences, wonderful bonds created with people that inspire me, strengths of my personality, and beautiful memories I will always cherish. On the contrary, it also has junk – the unnecessary things that make it too heavy. I will only mention one item that I put in the suitcase when I was about 12 years old.

Back then around the year 2012, I was already obsessed with English as a language and UK as a country. A big portion of this was adoring the boyband One Direction. That influenced a lot of opinions of mine, and I have made a plan – I want to move to the UK, ideally to London, and live my life happily there. My activities were also influenced such as discovering a passion for words and writing or messing around with graphic design programmes. These are all things that shaped me as I am today – a lazy creative with an imaginative mind that’s always on the go.

However, these activities have shifted their form – I am no longer writing fan fiction – I discovered poetry, blogging, and other storytelling. I no longer edit videos of the 1D members, but I still use the knowledge to work on a university assessment.

What is causing the friction is the fact that I’ve been holding on to this opinion of “I need to live in the UK to be happy because that’s what my 12–13-year-old me wanted”. And this is still in my suitcase. As I grew older, I did chase my dream. I am currently studying at a London university, and I am very proud of myself. It was a very beneficial, fun, and interesting dream to chase. It had its rightful place in the suitcase.

But this suitcase is in the UK now with me. And with the looming question of what happens after my final year (which is coming fast and furious), I feel the need to remove this burden from my suitcase. A burden, I didn’t even know I was carrying. I am ready to face more unknown options in life. It’s been too tiring having this self-developed pressure of needing to live in the UK otherwise I’d feel like I failed. I have made my dream of studying in the UK true and I think I’m ready to create some space in the suitcase for new dreams and goals but as of now, those are a mystery even for me.

So, my task for you today is, to think about your hypothetical suitcase. What is currently in it that you’ve been only dragging along and needs to be thrown out?

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash