What Are You Carrying into the New Year?

It’s a new year.

Have you identified yet what you want to be different in this coming year?

I don’t mean some fancy new resolution. Or some thin pledge to yourself.

But what might you use as a guiding principle for the year?

Here’s one: Pack light.

I came across this idea in Richard Wagamese’s book Embers. Once, as Wagamese was working on deepening his connection to spirituality, an old woman advised him, “Carry only what you need for the journey. Don’t tire yourself out with unnecessary stuff.”

She meant what he carried in his mind.

Unnecessary thoughts. Worries of things that could happen. The processing we do over things that have happened in the past.

Instead, we must pack light. 

Travel light. 

Reduce that ongoing hum in the back of your mind of unhelpful ideas.

What does packing light actually look like? 

It might mean letting go of the grudge against a colleague that resurfaces every morning on your commute. It could be releasing the mental rehearsal of conversations that haven't happened yet. Or perhaps it’s setting down a story you’ve been telling yourself about why you can’t pursue what matters most to you.

I played in a mixed tennis match last weekend, and after the match finished, my partner and one of the opponents continued chatting. But I noticed the match on our neighboring court was not over yet—they were still playing. I know what that’s like, trying to play tennis when someone is in a conversation a court nearby—even if you can’t hear what they are saying, you can hear this quiet hum of their voices.

So, I encouraged us all to leave the court and continue to talk outside.

Give the other teams the silence they might need to finish their match.

This moment was a great metaphor for what can be found in our minds—there is often a constant hum that is distracting. This idea, that thought. This rumination, that regret. We can find very little silence there in our brains.

And yet spirituality is found in silence. 

Personal growth lives there too.

Our growth and development is not found in noise. In hustle and bustle. Instead, development and growth lives in quiet places—when we reflect on what we are learning. When we notice our own resistance and what it might be pointing to.

How are you traveling into this new year? 

Is your heart heavy? 

Your mind full of noise?

Here’s an invitation: Choose one thing you are carrying that no longer serves you. Not everything—just one. Name that thing. Notice how it weighs you down. Then practice setting it down, even if just for today.

Imagine yourself with a navy blue backpack on your back—filled with those things you tend to carry around in your mind. What would it look like to unzip that pack, peer into the darkness inside, and pull out just one thing? Imagine doing that. Feel the weight of this thing in your hands. Then set it on the path before you.

If you need to, you can promise you’ll return to it. That you’ll check in later on how it has evolved, decide if it still needs carrying.

But what would it be like to then step over that thing on the ground? 

To leave it behind and be able to move through this year with a lighter load? 

Imagine taking your next steps without that weight on your back dragging you down. Without that constant hum drowning it out.

You will likely feel freer. Readier for what is to come. Lighter on your feet.

Doesn’t that sound like a good thing?

It’s a good idea to pack light in 2026, my friends. 

Our journey will be heavy enough as it is. 

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