EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE
When I Met This Girl with the Hot Water Bowl
Is your emotional baggage weighing you down?
Her name is Meera.
She was carrying a bowl filled with boiling water closer to the brim while coming back home. She had to be extremely careful as the water might spill over at the slightest disturbance and burn her skin. Her palms were already getting warmer with every three steps. She was tired and frustrated.
A little kid, who was selling flowers, approached her. It irked her. She told him ‘Are you blind? Can’t you see me? Go away. I don’t need your flowers.’
She got into the cab. As the driver turned left, the water started to spill. She shouted, ‘Have you lost your senses? Can’t you drive properly?’
He shouted back: ‘Ma’am, the roads are like that. What do you expect me to do?’
This led to a nasty argument.
Her mother called. She struggled to pick the phone up with one hand, ‘Talk to you later,’ she snapped at her mom.
‘We haven’t talked in a while,’ her mom pointed out.
‘I told you. Can’t you understand? Let’s just not talk for a few days! Is it such a big deal? I’m busy.’ She cut the call abruptly.
She carefully entered through the thin gap between the two gates and stepped into the elevator.
That was when I saw her. I smiled at her. ‘Why are you carrying this?’
‘My boyfriend gave it to me.’
‘No. Why are you carrying this?’
‘I just told you, my boyfriend gave it to me. Are you deaf?’
‘Ah. Why do you wear this dress?’
‘Because I like it.’
‘Likewise, why are you carrying this? Tell me the I part. I can understand that your boyfriend gave you this. But why do you need to carry it? You don’t seem to be happy handling it. You could have simply asked why he is making you do all this. Or you could have chosen to not take it. Or you could have just left it outside the door. Why did you have to silently accept it and carry it all this way?’
‘Because…,’ she fumbled for the right answer.
‘Because you didn’t want to hurt him by declining?’
‘Ha.’
‘But you are hurting yourself — and others! — by carrying this for him. There is no peace for them. No peace for you. Think about it.’
That bowl filled with boiling water has another name. It is called Emotional Baggage.
You accept everything silently. Maybe it’s helplessness, weakness, an unwillingness to question the state of things. Maybe you don’t want to hurt the other person. You think that in time, they’ll realize what they did to you.
So you get used to carrying that unwanted baggage that keeps increasing its weight. You get uncomfortable handling it.
And at this stage comes the problem. You start to vent it out on others — those who love you the most, those who are less powerful than you, and those who don’t matter to you. You subconsciously think that lashing out at them will not do any harm. You assume that they will understand you… or that they are not powerful to harm you back.
Emotional baggage starts with silence. You have a problem with someone, but you don’t discuss it with that person. You don’t try to solve it. Instead, you let the discomfort build up. And then, you spread this discomfort from there over others.
After Meera reaches home, she can either keep the bowl on the table or continue to hold it for her boyfriend. She can hope that the water will cool down anyway with time. But the anger she had shown to others and the discomfort that was felt by them all along the journey may not go away that quickly.
The best thing to do in such a situation is to channel the emotions correctly. Learn to drop the baggage that you don’t want to carry.
