7th June, 2023
You toss the memory of each hurt into a big gunny sack that you carry invisibly on your shoulders. The sack gets heavier as you fill it with recollections of ever more hurtful interactions. One day suddenly you have had enough. You heave the heavy full gunny sack up, swing it around your shoulder, and “POW!”, you slam the whole bag onto the person you have been mad at, letting the full sack of hurts explode, quite possibly ending with the punch line, “And I’m leaving!”
This may sound ridiculous, but many people today are still angry, upset, and even dysfunctional in their relationships and work because of a past event
that cannot be changed. They are still mad or sad today because of a relationship that went sour years ago, an investment that lost money, or a job that didn’t work out for whatever reason.
Instead of accepting the situation, they practice what is called “gunnysacking,” carrying it around with them, ready to pull it out and show it to anyone who expresses interest. You often meet them at social gatherings or sit next to them on airplanes.
We often hold on to a negative because it protects us from taking a chance on something new, such as taking a risk in a relationship or new business activity.
One of the hallmarks of happy, well-balanced people is that they look past their problems, accept them as past events that cannot be changed, learn what they can from them, and then get so busy working on their lives and work that they don’t have any time to think about them.
Don’t ‘Gunnysack’, accept the past & move on and stay blessed forever.