How big of a backpack do you want to put on to carry through life? -Larry Miller

"Everyone is born with a backpack. And you put stuff into it and you take stuff out of it. I've never really explored this concept this sharply, but let's go ahead and do it this way...

Everyone has a backpack. Some people have 500 pounds of rocks in it, other people have just a little sprinkling of gravel at the bottom. Now, the more you put in the backpack, the harder it is to get out of bed in the morning, the harder it is to exercise, the harder it is to move around and negotiate and navigate life and all it's obstacles. And you don't realize it when somebody's adding a rock to your backpack.. Maybe there's an outstanding bill, maybe you're driving around with a tail light busted, and you're aware of it, maybe you have an expired license, you know, there's all sorts of societal rocks that go into your back pack.

Most of the time its you adding rocks to your own backpack.

I remember when I was poor, I owed money to the I.R.S., I didn't have car insurance, so if I got pulled over, every time a cruiser puled up behind me, I always added a rock to my backpack. Not having health insurance, you know, just these sorts of outstanding warrants in your life, you know what I mean? The one night stand where you never called the chick again and you promised you'd call her again and then you're back at the club that you met her at and you're with a new chick and you're looking over your shoulder hoping you don't run into the old chick, that sort of thing. I feel that the more you have of that, the more you hunch over, the more you can't get out of bed.

Now, what you end up doing then is, you start supplementing it with booze and cocaine and gambling and whatever else to straighten your own back out. The weight of your own back pack has become too great and you can barely move any more. And what we say as a society is that we're trying to add to that back pack in a weird way. We're saying, 'Guys, go out there look you're best, do you're thing, go collect that.' But what we're doing is, while we're out getting, achieving, collecting, or patting the guys on the back who are having the affairs or the hits with the ladies or do have the collections of things that they constantly have to insure, and dust and keep in order and keep track of, we are simultaneously adding to our backpack. And maybe the more eastern philosophy of don't travel with too much in your backpack is the reason why these guys aren't hunched over at age 90." -Adam Carolla, American Genius