Unpackin'-The Baggage of Life: Live-Learn-Grow

I went from being a healthy, soon-to-retire airline pilot to a man with cancer who lost his job of more than twenty-five years and his retirement savings. Initially, I fell into a prolonged and deep depression. One warm spring afternoon while sitting on the porch, I made the decision to end it all-to take my own life, reasoning that my life insurance policy had greater value for my wife and three children than did a man with cancer, no job, and no money. It was then, while immersed in these suicidal thoughts, that I fell into some sort of sleep, more like a trance than sleep, during which time I had what I can only describe as a surreal experience. It was strange but so very real, like I was in another world, another place, or another time. Since that afternoon on the porch, I have engaged in a journey of reflection and have realized that the baggage we begin to accumulate in our earliest years ultimately affects every relationship that we have, none more so than the one we have with ourselves. We have only two choices: we can buckle beneath our load or we can unpack it and become greater than we ever imagined ourselves to be.