Edit 58: What Isn’t Ours To Carry
People won’t always be kind to us.
It’s one of those hard truths we learn early, yet somehow keep having to relearn. Sometimes it’s done carelessly—a thoughtless remark, a poorly timed joke. Often it’s a moment someone wishes they could take back. But there’s the flip side of the coin: sometimes it isn’t an accident. Sometimes people knowingly say or do things meant to diminish or embarrass.
We don’t always get to know why.
But the older I get, the less interested I am in understanding a person’s reasons. Instead, I’m more interested in deciding what I will do with what they’ve left behind.
Because not everything handed to us is ours to carry.
The people who matter most aren’t necessarily the ones who applaud every success or agree with every decision. They’re the ones who instinctively protect another person’s dignity. Encouragement costs nothing, and if a truth really needs to be said, it can almost always be said with compassion.
Not everyone will choose that path. There will be those who interrupt someone else’s joy, diminish a hard-earned win, make the cutting remark, or point out a flaw that never needed mentioning at all. We can spend a great deal of time wondering why…sometimes there may even be an answer.
But those reasons belong to them. What belongs to us is deciding what happens next.
I hope you know this, whoever you are when you need it—my children, my family, my friends…myself on the days when I need reminding. We can listen when listening is warranted. We can reflect when reflection is needed. We can even apologize when we’ve caused harm and change when changing will make us better. There is strength in being willing to examine ourselves honestly.
But there is also strength in knowing when to put something down.
We do not have to carry someone else’s unkindness because they handed it to us. We do not have to answer cruelty with cruelty. We don’t have other let another person’s bitterness change the way we see ourselves or the way we see the world.
And that’s the harder part, because sometimes, hurt can stick with us longer than kindness. I’ve been there—replaying the conversation. Imaging the response that should have been given. Wondering what could have been done differently. There have definitely been moments when I gave someone else’s words far more time and space than they were ever entitled to have.
Putting them down doesn’t mean pretending they didn’t hurt, and it certainly doesn’t mean excusing what happened and deciding it was acceptable. It simply means recognizing that we get to decide what comes next. We get to decide for how long and how far we’re going to carry that hurt…or not.
We can decide to put down what we’ve been carrying and unburden ourselves because if there’s something I’ve learned over the years it is this: the greatest act of resistance isn’t proving someone wrong. It’s refusing to surrender the kindness, generosity, and confidence they couldn’t take from us in the first place.
It takes very little to find fault, but it takes something far more gracious to notice what is beautiful, to encourage what is growing, and to leave people feeling a little more whole than when we found them.
And that, my friends, is something that is worth carrying.
