Baggage Claim. Michael J.D. Lowery

is curbside check-in. Just as there are agents at the departure curb whose assignment is to check in luggage, so too are there individuals whose job is to handle your emotional baggage. They ensure that you are able to transport baggage from the place of your departure to the place of your arrival. That's what these companions of misery represent. Their job is to make sure that you carry the same feelings, habits, and thought processes with you. Life-long friends can also connect you to life-long habits. Some people won't let you depart, because they are afraid that you will leave them behind. Sometimes, your need to vent and share your hurt is nothing more than an emotional "curbside check-in". And when you think you've moved past your pain or failure, you hear about it from the individuals you've confided in. Therefore, you remain in those cycles because you won't change your circles. Who you take with you is just as critical as what you take with you! Your company is just as crucial as your cargo. You see, the most critical place is at the crossroads, or "curbside", of a decision. Because decisions precede departures, this time of your life is vitally important. You will never depart from any place until you first make a decision to leave. But remember, you only have but so much time to remain at "curbside" before you are told to leave. At one airport, they called it "active loading and unloading". There are safety concerns with people parked at curbside. They pose a possible threat to the safety and security of others. If you are leaving, then leave! If you are staying, then park! But the longer it takes you to offload or pick up, the more your indecisiveness will affect the security of others. Your uncertainty will always lead to instability, further complicating your life. The irony is that making no decision usually becomes the decision! Either you will leave voluntarily, or you will be towed. In other words, if you don't decide to change your life, then life will decide for you, towing you back into the cycles you were trying to break! You see, departures begin with a decision. Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to make a decision. First of all, they are seldom easy, especially the critical ones. Secondly, they often come with consequences, which is why people have "layovers". They linger between choices, parked in the same place waiting for a decision to be made, rather than making them. At least when someone else makes the decision for them, there is somebody to blame for the consequences. Decisions are like boarding passes; you cannot depart without them. Making the best decisions for your life will allow you to transition first-class, ahead of those who spend years languishing in the "main cabin" of life; which is that same empty, unfulfilling place. A first-class, non-stop, one-way transition into the best decision is far better than frequent- flier miles accumulated from making the same poor decisions, any day!

      Some people make a decision at the "kiosk" of conversations, basing their decisions on someone else's opinion. That's a recipe for disaster! How many times have you listened to someone else and paid the price for it? While we can attest to benefiting often from sound advice, we can agree that we incurred a high cost for bad advice. More than likely, the bad outnumbered the good. Before a person's opinion encourages you to "check in" to making a decision, make sure you "check out" their motives! They just may be influencing your decisions out of their own unresolved issues, thus encouraging you to be their fellow passenger in remaining where they are. There use to be a very popular slogan that circulated during the 80's and 90's that sought to discourage drinking and driving. The slogan that was used said "friends don't let friends drive drunk." There should be a new slogan that reads, "Friends don't let friends live drunk." Issues and emotional baggage impair our decision-making ability. They impede sound judgment and rationalization. It is as if a person is intoxicated with issues, slowing intelligent responses to life's transitions. What person would want to see someone they claim to care about, heading into the wrong direction? Who would want to see their loved ones become a victim of an emotional collision? Who would desire that their friends become a relationship fatality? The truth is the impaired can't recognize the intoxicated! People defer to the opinions of others, perhaps believing that they themselves are too impaired to see and think clearly; believing that the other person has the sobriety of a designated driver to steer them in the right direction. And that should be the case. There should be someone around you who is sober. If everyone in your circle is impaired, who then possesses the soundness and wisdom necessary to give a clearer perspective? If all of your friends are drinking from the same spiked-punch bowl of emotional issues, then who is sober, sane, and sound enough to present the truth? Everyone should have a true friend who isn't so intoxicated with their own issues, or so impressed with you that they can't be truthful. A true friend will tell you the truth even at the risk of that truth causing a rift in your relationship. Getting along can't happen at the expense of going forward. Sometimes, a person has to hurt your feelings in order to help you move forward. Truth usually hurts because it cuts away the fat. It seems mean because it cuts lean. It doesn't cut like a mugger, but it cuts like a surgeon. Its incision is done with precision to help you make the right decisions. The only anesthetic is the knowledge that this process is like a surgical procedure that will remove the excess. That is what makes a true friend so valuable. You may be in a relationship that your friend sees as potentially damaging and perhaps even dangerous. That relationship may involve cheating or abuse (verbal or physical or both), neglect and even control. As I mentioned earlier, often the relationship is the result of acceptable dysfunction. To you, the abuse is excused. For you, the cheating results in forgiveness over and over again, then accepting that person back. With you, the control and possessiveness is seen as healthy. Things that to others would be unacceptable, you've accepted. Obviously, no one can tell you what to do. Usually, this becomes a very sensitive area because it often destroys life-long friendships. How do you tell someone you care about that the person they are in love with is no good for them? It's never easy, just like taking the keys from a drunk driver. To them, they aren't intoxicated. To them, they have things under control. To them, they haven't exceeded the limit! People are quicker to recognize when THINGS are out of control than when THEY are out of control. They are slow to recognize when they are under the influence. But just like you would insist strongly that they let you take them home, so too must your friends insist that you listen to their advice, or even the information they have. If the people who want the best for you are your proven friends, then you should trust their concerns.