Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack

I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel 'em?

I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life. You start with the little things. The things on shelves and in drawers, the knick-knacks, the collectibles

Feel the weight as that adds up

Then you start adding larger stuff, clothes, table-top appliances, lamps, linens, your TV

The backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. And you go bigger

Your couch, bed, your kitchen table. Stuff it all in there. Your car, get it in there

Your home, whether it's a studio apartment or a two bedroom house. I want you to stuff it all into that backpack

Now try to walk. It's kind of hard, isn't it?

This is what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. We weigh ourselves down until we can't even move. And make no mistake, moving is living

Now, I'm gonna set that backpack on fire. What do you want to take out of it?

Photos? Photos are for people who can't remember. Drink some ginkgo and let the photos burn

In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing. It's kind of exhilarating, isn't it?

Now, this is gonna be a little difficult, so stay with me

You have a new backpack. Only this time, I want you to fill it with people

Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office, and then you move into the people that you trust with your most intimate secrets

Your cousins, your aunts, your uncles, your brothers, your sisters, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend or your girlfriend

You get them into that backpack

And don't worry. I'm not gonna ask you to light it on fire

Feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake - your relationships are the heaviest components in your life

Do you feel the straps cutting into your shoulders?

All those negotiations and arguments, and secrets and compromises

You don't need to carry all that weight. Why don't you set that bag down?

Some animals were meant to carry each other, to live symbiotically for a lifetime - star crossed lovers, monogamous swans

We are not those animals

The slower we move, the faster we die. We are not swans

We're sharks