News from Jules | 07.11.2022 | As Heavy As You Make It
I purposefully chose the smaller backpack. Sure, I could have fit everything in my big backpacking pack—gear for hiking, paddleboarding, climbing, camping and resort wear—but I would have to carry all that weight on my shoulders. Everywhere. On trains, subways, buses, planes and taxis until I picked up the rental car.
Two bags seemed a more manageable load for getting across the country and into another one. It was quite the trek, but I immediately said yes. This was a trip of a lifetime.
It was supposed to be 14 hours from the cabin where I live on Omega’s campus near Rhinebeck, NY, to my family’s cabin at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. It actually took 63 hours.
My phone buzzed with a new message right as I excitedly got to the pub entrance for my first official “vacation beer” before my connecting flight from Toronto to Edmonton, Canada.
Your flight has been cancelled. You are rebooked for departure at 3:15 pm on Saturday, July 2. That was all: No reason. No assistance. No accommodations.
I was stranded along with passengers on something like 50 percent of all flights across Canada that holiday weekend. I made the best I could of my extended layover, half-heartedly celebrating Canada Day in Toronto though my heart was already in Jasper waving maple leaf flags at the Main Street parade with my nieces and nephew. When I woke up the following day and saw an email from Expedia that my rebooked flight was also canceled I was crushed.
Would I ever get there? Or would I return to New York and go five more months without seeing my family?
All I could do was shove everything into my backpack and rolling suitcase and head back to the airport. With drooping shoulders and baggy eyes from all the crying, I once again sat in the customer service line. Only 1.5 hours this time instead of eight.
The confused customer service agent looked back and forth between the email on my iPhone and her screen as she informed me that there was in fact a 3:15 pm flight departing for Edmonton and I had a seat on it. I clutched the new boarding pass tightly with my passport like Willa Wonka’s Golden Ticket. We landed a little later than my 6 p.m. rental reservation, but a white pickup truck was still available and waiting for me at the National car rental kiosk.
My family waited up around the fire pit in their pajamas until I finally arrived at 10:30 p.m. Everybody was pooped but happy.
Missing half of my time with my family in these epic national parks was both unwanted and unwelcome. But, this exhausting, expensive delay did not ruin my vacation.
I kept reminding myself: This is a lot of ping pong balls. But just ping pong balls. Even though it felt heavy like a softball. Even thought my sobs were huge like it was a bowling ball.
Why was I thinking about balls at a time like this?
To gain perspective while under stress.
I learned one of the wisest stress management tools I’ve encountered from a comedian. During graduate school in 2008, I interned with AARP Oregon. At one of our events, we hired a comedian as the opener for some community program about financial literacy or something totally unrelated to comedy or stress. I remember nothing about it except for the brilliant, metaphorical backpack.
She asked us to close our eyes and put on an imaginary backpack. One or two straps probably depending on how much we were carrying. Then she asked us to think about everything stressful in our life at the time and to imagine each one as a ball as we put it in our backpack.
How heavy was it now?
So heavy.
Too heavy, somebody joked out loud, they needed a rolling backpack.
That’s because we carry too much, and we often overestimate our stressors, the comedian wisely explained.
“See there’s really only three kinds of stressors: ping pong balls, softballs, and bowling balls,” she explained:
Hundreds of ping pong balls of stress bounce into our lives every day and can bounce right out, like getting cut off in traffic or stubbing a toe.
Softballs are fewer and farther in between, heavier stressors but also timebound with a beginning and end, like moving or divorce.
Bowling balls are rare but a big deal, like the death of a loved one.
The key is knowing what’s what.
There were heads nodding and audible aha’s as the comedian described examples of how we often miscategorize our stressors and she asked us to reevaluate what we’d put in our backpack.
So much of the stress actually comes from how we mislabel it, how much we carry unnecessarily, and most importantly how we handle the stressors, rather than whatever happened.
How heavy was it now? Much lighter.
We choose whether stressors feel like hardships or challenges depending on our perspective. The more perspective we have, the more stressors seem like challenges, inspiring curiosity, creativity, and resourcefulness. Hence, rising to the challenge.
Throughout the past few weeks I kept reminding myself of this metaphor and recalibrating.
Not only about the trip, but life lately.
For instance, I tested positive for COVID a few weeks before our family vacation. Then my car was rear-ended on the way to town a few days before I left. The 48-hour layover in Toronto on the way there, followed by a 12-hour layover in New York City on the way back. And then my computer wouldn’t work upon my return.
Missing so much work, dealing with insurance companies and body shops, paying for extra rides and hotels, buying and setting up a new laptop. Intense but timebound they sure felt heavy like softballs, but were they?
I reminded myself each time: This is actually a lot of ping pong balls all at once. But just ping pong balls.
That doesn’t negate the fatigue and exhaustion, correct the confusion and frustration or compensate for loss and pain.
A barrage of ping pong balls doesn’t feel good, but it also doesn’t ruin anything.
And only a few, if any, need to be carried around in ones’ backpack—temporarily.
Because we’re already carrying plenty.
May you lighten your load this week.
Love,
Jules