Not Everything Worth Keeping Needs to Be Carried

by Paul Green
Republished with permission
There may come a moment — maybe slowly, maybe suddenly — when you realize the life you’ve been building doesn’t really feel like yours anymore.
It’s not that anything is “wrong.”
From the outside, maybe everything looks fine.
But inside, you feel tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix.
You feel cluttered, even when the room is clean.
You feel like you’ve been running — toward something, away from something — but you’re not sure what, or why.
I know that feeling.
And I’ve come to believe it’s the soul’s quiet way of saying:
“It’s time to put some things down.”
We live in a world that tells us to constantly keep adding.
Add goals.
Add achievements.
Add upgrades.
Add followers.
Add square footage.
We are taught — subtly, constantly — that “more” is how we prove our worth.
More is how we measure progress.
More is how we finally become enough.
So we carry.
— We carry ambition, even when it exhausts us.
— We carry comparison, even when it steals our joy.
— We carry shame about where we are, guilt about where we aren’t, and pressure to be everything, everywhere, all at once.
And over time, we get used to the weight of what we carry.
We call it normal.
We call it adulthood.
We call it “just the way it is.”
But deep down, part of us still wonders:
What would it feel like to be light again? To be light of heart like a child.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my Mexico move was my answer to that question. Or, at least, it was an attempt to find an answer to that question.
It wasn’t about escaping — not really.
It was about stripping everything down to the essentials.
Letting go of what no longer fit, even if I’d carried it for years.
Letting the noise fall
away, so I could finally hear myself think again.
And what I discovered wasn’t just a different lifestyle — it was a different way of being. In the silence, I remembered who I was before I got so good at performing and carrying.
In Mexico, I learned how to live with less — and feel more full. I learned that time is wealth. That presence is power. That simplicity is a kind of wisdom.
I learned that a slow morning and a sincere conversation are worth more than anything I used to chase or anything I can carry.
But most of all, I learned how to listen.
To the rhythms of my body.
To the quiet truths I used to drown in busyness.
To the part of me that never wanted a bigger life — just a truer one.
Letting go didn’t make me less, it made me real.
We don’t talk enough about the emotional weight of the lives we’re told to carry. We pretend it’s normal to be constantly overwhelmed.
To be exhausted by our own calendars.
To be surrounded by things and still feel empty.
To work endlessly toward a version of success that doesn’t feed the soul.
But what if the real problem isn’t that we’re behind — It’s that we’re headed in a direction that was never ours?
Letting go and starting over is terrifying at first.
It can feel like failure.
It can feel like loss.
It can feel like erasing all the effort you’ve put in.
But that’s only if you measure your life by how much you carry, instead of how freely you live.
Letting go is not giving up.
It’s clearing space.
So that what’s real, what’s beautiful, what’s sacred — has room to breathe again.
These days, I value different things.
Not hustle — but harmony.
Not being impressive — but being impactful.
Not status — but stillness.
Not having everything — but being at peace.
I’m not even remotely interested in building a life that looks good on paper but weighs heavy on the soul.
I want a life that fits in my hands, that fills my heart, that feels like me.
And I’ve learned something simple but life-changing:
Not everything worth keeping needs to be carried.
Some things served you once — and now, they’re asking to be released.
Some stories gave you structure — but now they’re a cage.
Some dreams were beautiful — but they were borrowed.
You can thank them.
You can grieve them.
And then you can let them go.
Because on the other side of letting go is space.
And space is sacred.
Space to feel.
To grow.
To reconnect.
To rest.
Space to return to the ordinary moments that actually matter —
A good meal.
An unrushed conversation.
A walk with no purpose but joy.
That’s not settling.
That’s rebellion.
That’s living.
So if you’re holding too much — physically, emotionally, spiritually —
If your life feels too full of things that don’t feed you,
If you feel like you’ve been performing more than actually existing…
You’re not broken.
You’re not lazy.
You’re not lost.
You’re just ready.
Ready for a lighter way.
A truer rhythm.
A version of yourself that doesn’t need to be edited to be loved.
Let it go.
All of it.
The noise.
The pressure.
The shoulds and should nots.
The shame.
And come home to the version of your life that makes you feel whole again.
May 13, 2025