In high school, I was the girl with the overstuffed backpack, which was filled with items I thought I might need but never ____1____ used: extra notebooks, a pack of markers, a first-aid kit, water bottles, and even a change of clothes. I was convinced that being ____2____ meant being weighed down.
I arrived on the college campus with the same oversized backpack, and it wasn’t long before the physical harm became impossible to ____3____. My shoulders and back ached constantly, and I even ____4____ social events because I didn’t want to carry that heavy bag around.
I knew I needed to make a change and decided to adopt the “One Bag Rule”: everything I needed for the day had to fit into a small, lightweight backpack. At first, it was ____5____. I stared at piles of “essential” items, trying to decide what to leave behind. Finally, I replaced my heavy reference books with a single notebook. I donated my extra water bottles and kept just one. I even learned to live without a first-aid kit, ____6____ that the campus health center was never too far away.
The ____7____ period was tough, but the rewards were immediate. My back pain disappeared within weeks. I moved faster through the campus. I returned to social events because my bag was no longer a ____8____ - it was a convenience. But the biggest change was mental. When I stopped carrying around a bag full of “what-ifs”, I started living more ____9____, I no longer felt the need to prepare for every possible disaster. That sense of ____10____ welled into every area of my life, giving me space to focus on what truly matters.