Carrying Weight

Morning friend.

I'm writing this from home.

The rain is beating a heavy tune on my office window.

The kind of rain that makes you grateful for the week we spent in Portugal recently.

The tan is fading fast but the memories are not.

I was lying on a sun lounger last week when my phone lit up.

The Eventful Lives podcast had gone live.

Weeks earlier than planned.

The team had called to say they loved the conversation and wanted to release it immediately.

Naturally, I was excited.

It's the biggest podcast I've appeared on to date.

A chance to share some of my story with a much wider audience.

So we watched it together as a family that evening.

Then I made a mistake.

I read the comments.

Most were positive.

Some were incredibly kind.

But that's not what I remember.

What I remember are the handful that weren't.

People questioned who I was.

Questioning things I'd done.

Questioning whether any of it was true.

Accusing me of being the problem rather than part of the solution.

You probably know the feeling.

A hundred positive comments become invisible the moment one negative one arrives.

That night I didn't sleep particularly well.

Those comments occupied far more space in my head than they had earned.

By morning I knew exactly what was happening.

And that I needed to practice what I preach  - 'Millican's Law'.

I wrote about it in Transmission #013 - find it in The Archive.

The principle:

Feel it.

Then move on.

You get until 11:00 the following morning.

Simple.

Not easy.

So before breakfast I went looking for a clip I'd remembered watching years earlier.

Joe Rogan was talking about criticism online.

Laughing about people spending their days tearing others down from behind keyboards.

Then he said something that stuck with me.

"Michael Jordan doesn't post Reddit comments."

The point wasn't that criticism doesn't matter.

It does.

The right criticism can change your life.

The point was that there is a difference between people doing something and people commenting on those who are.

The podcast has now been viewed more than sixteen thousand times on YouTube alone.

The messages that followed have come from friends, students and complete strangers.

Many have been incredibly generous.

Some have shared parts of their own stories.

Some have shared mine on their own feeds.

Others have simply said thank you.

I appreciated every one of them.

But I tried not to carry those too heavily either.

Praise can become just as dangerous as criticism if you start building your identity around it.

The middle ground is usually the safest place to stand.

Last week I wrote about maintenance.

Protecting the things that matter before they demand your attention.

This week I've been thinking about weight.

Not physical weight.

Mental weight.

The things we carry around with us when we could just decide to put them down.

Some things deserve space in our rucksack.

Responsibility.

Family.

Friendship.

Health.

The promises we've made to others and to ourselves.

But much of what weighs and slows us down was never ours to carry in the first place.

The opinions of strangers.

The thoughts of people who don't know our story.

The criticism of people who would never trade places with us.

Our unrealistic expectations of our own need for perfection.

Before we go any further, let's take a moment to debrief together:

What are you carrying that no longer belongs to you?

An old criticism?

A mistake?

Somebody else's opinion?

A standard you chose for yourself?

Your mission this week (if you choose to accept it):

Put it down.

A grudge.

An expectation.

A criticism.

A voice that no longer deserves space in your head.

Carrying weight is unavoidable.

Carrying the wrong weight is optional.

Choose carefully what earns a place in your rucksack.

That's enough for now.

More next Sunday.

Mike

Hold the line · Do the hard things

P.s - Here’s a link to the podcast if you missed it -

Ex-Spy breaks silence on silent war on terror - Eventful Lives Podcast #342