Years ago, I was sitting on an airplane waiting to take off when I noticed a suitcase sitting all alone on the tarmac.
And I watched.
One employee walked around it.
Another drove right past it.
Someone else practically danced around it like it was invisible.
No one stopped.
No one picked it up.
No one seemed to think, “Maybe I should do something about that.”
And I remember thinking:
Isn’t this what we do in life sometimes?
Not with luggage.
With the things that actually matter.
The conversation we need to have.
The friend we need to check on.
The burnout we keep pretending we’ll deal with “after this busy season.”
The tension in the office everyone feels but no one addresses.
The habits draining our energy.
The joy we keep postponing.
We dance around them.
Not because we’re bad people.
Usually because we’re tired.
Distracted.
Overwhelmed.
Or secretly hoping someone else will handle it.
Back then, I turned it into a little experiment in my business. At that time I was shipping thousands of pieces of jewelry every year, and so I left a box sitting out to see how long it would take before someone noticed it didn’t belong there.
About thirty seconds.
“Whose box is this?”
“Why is this sitting here?”
“Does this need to go out?”
My team couldn’t stand something being out of place.
And honestly?
That story hits differently for me now than it did ten years ago.
Because these days, I’m less interested in misplaced boxes…
and more interested in the emotional clutter we step around every day.
The heavy energy in a room no one acknowledges.
The coworker who’s clearly struggling.
The marriage that has become two people passing each other in the kitchen.
The exhaustion we wear like a badge of honor.
The way we say we want happiness while continuing habits that disconnect us from ourselves and each other.
We keep walking around the suitcase.
Sometimes in workplaces.
Sometimes in relationships.
Sometimes inside our own hearts.
And here’s what I’ve learned:
Happiness is rarely found in giant life overhauls.
More often, it’s found in the small moments when someone decides to stop walking past what matters.
To send the text.
To apologize.
To laugh more.
To rest.
To eat lunch away from the computer.
To speak kindly to themselves.
To notice the person who got quiet in the meeting.
To bring better energy into the room instead of waiting for the room to change first.
Those tiny choices?
They are simple little shifts.
And simple little shifts shape cultures.
Families.
Teams.
Lives.
Because every room has “suitcases on the tarmac.”
Things everyone sees…
but no one addresses.
The question is:
What are you dancing around today?
And what might change if you finally picked it up?