Why your life could use a few a more rucksacks

In case you haven’t noticed, you may be the only person who doesn’t walk around your neighborhood with a rucksack anymore. If you’re not placing an unnecessary weight on yourself while exercising, you may not be trying.

Or you may be a walker who felt judged by those try-hard runners. Now you’ve taken the power back with a rucksack, revealing you’re the one trying harder.

Or you may be a baseball player who likes using a donut on your bat in the on-deck circle, and now you just want to put one on your body.

Why go through the trouble with a rucksack?

In fitness, a rucksack allows you to exert more energy for a better workout. Perhaps even better, it makes walking feel freer and easier when you don’t have one on.

Essentially, a rucksack is an intentional burden placed on oneself in the short term to realize a long-term gain. It’s choosing a hard thing that will make things better in the future.

Especially in our Western, American life, replete with resources and conveniences, intentionally choosing something hard feels wrong.

Why not have the bowl of ice cream? It’s available, delicious, and adds happiness to my day. Why talk to the stranger? They’re probably enjoying the quiet, don’t want to chat, and certainly don’t want some weirdo to impose on their space. Why donate the money? Plenty of others are donating, my small amount won’t matter much, and some other opportunity for that will come along when I have more money and more time.

But there’s something about burdens—about temporary sacrifices—that end up being the things most worthwhile.

Why intentional burdens have merit

A rucksack, while burdensome, gets you in better shape. Less ice cream gets you healthier. Talking to people tends to perk them up and perk you up. Giving money makes you more generous and fulfilled.

If we never put rucksacks on, if we never took on intentional burdens, we’d be missing out on lots of opportunities to grow. In a strange way, our short-term ease can make things burdensome in the long run. Without sacrifices today, we may be less healthy, socially connected, generous, and many other things tomorrow.

On the other hand, if we see life as a series of opportunities to bear a temporary burden—to go rucking in all life's facets—we can set ourselves up to be the kind of humans we’d like to be.

Why we shouldn't ruck alone

But one thing about burdens is that they’re best not endured alone. Following certain disciplines and habits for personal growth is by nature difficult. The young men and women following Jesus felt this, and he addressed it by comparing Himself and his teaching to the yoke of an oxen. If one was burdened, taking on His yoke would ease the burden.

While His teaching was hard to accept (because it required personal sacrifice), it turned out to be a wellspring of life when applied. The short-term sufferings—eating simply, loving strangers, giving to the poor—proved to bring long-term gains for the burden bearers and others. They fashioned every component of their lives with rucksacks.

Would we dare to look at the facets of our lives and consider the worth of a meaningful, short-term burden? If we do, we may find that one by one they add up to making many areas of our lives so much better.

What rucksack are you willing to put on today?