I’m a chronic overpacker. Like, it’s a problem.

Now mind you, I’m not one of those people who shows up to an airport with two checked bags, a carry-on, and a personal item for a weekend getaway.

Instead, I begin with a moderately-sized duffel and a backpack. Nothing crazy.

I start with the necessities: enough shirts, shorts, socks, and underwear for the number of days I’ll be gone. I add a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and other remaining toiletry necessities.

Then I add a few extras: my Bible, a book, a magazine, a pen and pencil. An extra outfit because I spill food on myself at the most inconvenient times.

At this point, the bags are modestly filled and don’t cause back pain. Success.

But then the overpacking begins. There’s more room in the bag, so I decide to fill it.

I add an extra pair of socks in case one pair gets wet. I add my running shoes and a pair of running clothes, maybe two (even though I can’t remember the last time I ran on vacation). I add some extra toiletries because nobody wants to run out of toothpaste (even if the current tube has 3 months’ worth of paste in it). I add another book in case I finish the one I haven’t even started. Nice clothes in case we go to a fancy restaurant or church on a random Tuesday. An extra set of clothes in case our flight gets delayed. And another set of clothes in case I don’t like the clothes I packed. An extra magazine I found lying around my room for no good reason. My planner. My planner from last quarter… because why not.

By this point, the bags are bulging. But there’s still a bit more room. A third book because I think I’ll get stranded for a month. Three more shirts in case I decide that lunchtime would be a great time to get redressed for the day. And three journals because I just know I’ll spend every waking moment writing.

I wish I was being facetious. I’m not. I just unpacked from a 5-day vacation I just took to visit family.

And I packed every single one of those things. And more.

Oh, and did I mention that the place I stayed at is a place I’ve stayed for many years in a row. A place that—for as long as I’ve been there—has always had a washer and dryer?

Like I said, I have a problem.

If all this problem left me was a lot of unused clothes and a sore back, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

But have you ever noticed that when you try to repack a bag on your way back from vacation, it’s always more full than when you left for vacation?

Sometimes that’s because you acquire a souvenir or a gift. Most of the time it’s because things are shoved in there haphazardly for the return voyage.

But as I shoved the unused running clothes, journals, and last quarter’s planner back into the bag Saturday morning, I thought to myself:

Isn’t this the way I treat life?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always shoved my life full of things.

Some are necessary—work, family time, spiritual disciplines, and school.
Some are good—fitness, friendships, rest, and hobbies.
Some aren’t good—doom scrolling, bad habits, traffic, and time-sucks.

But they all take time and energy from our days.

For whatever reason, I’ve always shoved my life full of things. I’ve pushed and pushed, willing the zipper of life to close on top of everything I’ve shoved into it.

The thing is, it almost always does close on top of everything I’ve shoved into it. Maybe there’s a random hobby, commitment, or friendship that I have to leave out, but such is life.

But I’ve learned that it only ever fits for a short period of time.

When you pack up the bag to move from one season to the next, something is inevitably added.

Maybe it’s a small thing, like a new acquaintance. Or a larger thing, like a new role at work. Once or twice in life, it’s a ginormous thing—a diagnosis, the weight of grief, or a child with new needs.

Yet we still try to stuff everything in the bag of life.

Maybe, if you’re like me, you find the smallest thing possible to pull out. See? I’ll convince myself, I’ve just pulled out the chapstick-sized app I play once a week. That’ll fix it.

But we’re fooling ourselves. And what happens is that when we shove everything down, something tumbles out. Often, we don’t realize it until we reach out next destination, our next season of life.

Maybe increased responsibility at work was added to your bag and time with your family tumbled out.
Maybe a medical diagnosis was added to your bag and your mental wellness habits tumbled out.
Maybe a kid’s extracurricular was added to your bag and your walk with God tumbled out. (I see this one all the time when faithful, church-attending parents and kids disappear from the church building during a sports season. I also see faithful, church-attending parents and kids build their sports schedule around church attendance and I applaud you for that sacrifice; I know it’s not easy.)

For me, when something gets added to my bag of life—work stress, poor health, travel—it’s often sleep that tumbles out of my bag. And I always pay the price for it.

So what can we do to prevent something that we love or is necessary to our wellbeing from unintentionally tumbling out of the bag of life? I have two suggestions:

1. Add margin to your life.

If I were to go back a week ago and repack my bag for vacation, I’d take out one of the journals, two of the books, half of the outfits, the nice clothes, and both planners. At minimum.

My bag would have extra room. And guess what? That’s perfectly okay. It’s called margin. Margin in case I wanted to buy a souvenir. Margin in case I didn’t want my back to hurt. Margin in case I wanted to just toss everything in the bag, zip it up, and go. Margin for the unexpected.

The same is true for our lives as well. We need margin.

We need margin in our lives so that when the unexpected happens (and we can expect for the unexpected to happen), we have room for it in our lives.

When the diagnosis comes, you have the margin to go to doctor’s appointments.
When the key gets locked in the truck, you have the margin to wait for someone to come save you.
When the item at home breaks, you have the margin to rearrange your schedule and not cancel appointments.

I have a lot of growth to do in this area, but I’ve made some progress. One way I do this is schedule margin on my calendar. If you looked at my calendar, it would look full. But I intentionally schedule margin so that—though my calendar looks full—it’s actually got a lot of margin built into it.

Sabbath-keeping (which I write about a lot) is an act of margin. Sometimes I don’t build in margin to process my own emotions. But Sabbath gives me that margin.

2. Intentionally Remove Things From Your Life

When something major gets added to your bag of life, choose what gets removed. Otherwise, something you don’t choose will tumble out.

Let me give you an example. I manage an organization I co-founded for preachers called Preacher’s Block. When my wife and I welcomed our baby into the world (a ginormous thing to add to the bag of life), for the month leading up to her birth and the month after, I asked someone else to take on all my responsibilities for Preacher’s Block. And when I took back the responsibilities (after the all-hands-on-deck of newborn parenting became most-hands-on-deck), I decided to change up the responsibilities so that I was doing less. In other words, I took something out of the bag and when I returned it, I returned less.

Choose what goes from your life. When your child picks up a new extracurricular, then choose what it is that you’ll remove from life. Maybe you’ll stop putting in over-40 hours at work. Maybe you’ll stop going to the gym. Maybe you’ll hire someone to clean the house. Just be intentional about what gets removed.

---

For many years, I heard that the transition from full-time schooling to the workforce was a really tough time for young adults. I made that transition two years ago. I can attest that it is really tough.

I had hopes that I’d make lots of friends and grow in friendships in this stage of our lives. And we have; we’ve made some friends and some friendships have grown. But not to the extent to which I hoped and even expected. Some of that’s on me; I tend to have unrealistic hopes and expectations.

But as I pondered why we were becoming friends with some people and not others and why our friendships with some people were growing and other friendships weren’t, I noticed one key factor: those who hadn’t overpacked their bags were available for friendship.

I think this goes beyond friendship, though. I think that those who haven’t overpacked their bags are available to help others. They’re available for deepening their relationship with God. They’re available for saying yes to personal growth opportunities.

Those whose bags are overpacked can’t. Or, if they do, something important from their life tumbles out.

I don’t know about you, but I want to run through life with an underpacked bag. Maybe one day I’ll realize that I don’t have enough filled in my life and I need to take on more; I know some people in the world like this. But I don’t think I’m going to be one of them. And I don’t think the majority of Americans need to fear become that person either.

But what I do think we need to fear is getting to the end of life and seeing a trail of all the things that tumbled out of our lives that we wish we had stayed in them. We were just too busy shoving the third journal in to notice.

---

Want more reflections like this? Subscribe to my blog below and follow me on Facebook.

Want to read some of my recent blog posts? Check them out below!

• Empowering Future Generations Through Faith
• Why Do We Celebrate Advent?
• Methodism and the Ministry of Compassion (The 19)
• Why Acceptance is Key to Spiritual Growth
• Keeping the Connection: Upholding Polity in the Global Methodist Church (The 19)

---

This blog is a hobby for me, but it does cost some money to maintain. If you’d like to support this blog you can “buy me a coffee.” Thanks!