“My kids don’t know my baggage… to tell them might destroy them. Not telling them means they don’t really know me.”

Spilling the story of one’s “baggage” is a necessary step in getting to really know someone IF that someone is still carrying it around. If he has ditched it, truly released it, it is irrelevant or very close to it. I feel for this person but it sounds as if he is arguing for his weakness, looking for an excuse to hold on tight to his baggage!

However, I do relate to this person. Been there, done that. Even today, toward the end of my sixth decade on this earth, I still occasionally find myself hauling out that old hoary excuse “I am the way I am because of …”.

I have even had the unmitigated gall to sometimes say to myself a half-baked version of “It’s not my fault/responsibility: I am the way I am because of my mother,” because of what she did or, almost as often, what she didn’t do.

Now it’s usually a half thought, part of the unspoken background chatter that goes on inside all of our heads. I’ve spent too much time working on my myself to allow it as a full-throated conscious thought. But at times I can sense it running around in the weeds, under cover, like a rat in the wall, a thought virus or trojan worm inside my mind, working for the opposition.

Just like staying physically fit requires lifetime commitment to healthy eating and ongoing exercise, so too does good mental health require an ongoing tending to the mind, weeding out thoughts and patterns of thinking or behavior that do not serve us.

Closing quote: “Argue for your weakness and it is yours.”

NOTE: Today’s visual is from Postsecrets.com, a website where people anonymously reveal secrets via artistic, often moving postcard images. The site offers fascinating insights into the human condition.