Return to Sender: Delivering Baggage Back to Its Rightful Owners
By Michael Kelman Portney
You’ve been there. Someone dumps their problems, their failures, or their mess squarely at your feet. It could be family drama, workplace politics, or the fallout of a broken system they helped create. And for years—maybe your whole life—you’ve been told to pick it up and carry it. “Be the bigger person,” they say. “Keep the peace.”
Well, here’s the truth: it’s not your baggage, and it’s time to return it to the owner.
Carrying Bags You Didn’t Pack
Let’s be blunt. Most of us are walking around with emotional Samsonites stuffed with other people’s issues. Maybe it’s your parents’ unresolved trauma that they turned into “family tradition.” Maybe it’s your boss’s incompetence or society’s refusal to address obvious problems. The world is full of people who don’t want to deal with their mess, so they shove it onto anyone who seems strong enough—or quiet enough—to bear the weight.
And if you’re not careful, you start to believe it’s your job to carry it. That’s how they get you. “Oh, but you’re so good at handling things.” Yeah? I’m also good at dropping them.
The Art of Returning Baggage
Here’s the philosophy: If you didn’t pack the bag, you don’t have to carry it. Returning baggage isn’t about being cruel or unkind—it’s about accountability. It’s about forcing people to deal with the messes they’ve created instead of outsourcing the emotional labor to someone else.
Here’s how you do it:
Name It: Call out the bag for what it is. “This isn’t mine. This is your unresolved issue, your poor decision-making, or your bullshit narrative. Own it.”
Set It Down: Stop engaging with it. Stop carrying it. When they try to shove it back at you, hold your ground. “This is not my responsibility.”
Walk Away, or Deliver It Back: If they won’t pick it up, leave it there. Or, if you’re feeling particularly Socratic, hand it to them directly with a little rhetorical flourish: “This seems like something you’d be better equipped to handle since, you know, it’s yours.”
Why People Hate Accountability
Returning baggage makes people uncomfortable because it shatters their illusions. For years, they’ve relied on others to carry their burdens and make their lives easier. When you set down the bag, they have to confront two harsh realities:
They’ve Been Avoiding Responsibility: No one likes admitting they’ve been dodging the consequences of their actions.
You’re Not Their Safety Net: The moment you refuse to carry their baggage, they lose their sense of control over you. And that terrifies them.
Legacy Baggage: The Bullshit Passed Down
Some of the heaviest bags are generational. Families are experts at passing down trauma like heirlooms. A narcissistic parent turns their insecurities into your emotional labor. A dysfunctional sibling turns their bad decisions into your cleanup duty. And when you finally call it out, you get hit with the “But we’re family!” guilt trip.
Newsflash: Family doesn’t mean a free pass to offload their garbage onto you.
Returning generational baggage is the ultimate act of self-liberation. It says, “I’m not here to carry the weight of everything you couldn’t deal with. I’ve got my own shit to handle.”
Cultural and Political Baggage
This doesn’t stop at the personal level. Think about the societal baggage you’ve been asked to carry. Politicians make promises they don’t keep, corporations screw over workers, and somehow, you’re the one stuck dealing with rising prices and broken systems.
And if you complain? You’re told to “suck it up” or “work harder.”
Bullshit. These problems were created by people with power and money, and they damn well need to fix them. Returning this kind of baggage means calling out the perpetrators, exposing their failures, and refusing to quietly bear the brunt of their greed and incompetence.
Radical Accountability Is Revolutionary
Returning baggage isn’t just personal—it’s political, cultural, and revolutionary. It’s about rejecting the idea that you’re responsible for fixing what others broke. It’s about saying, “No, I won’t carry your mistakes, your failures, or your shame. You deal with it.”
This philosophy is raw, real, and unrelenting. It’s not about being nice; it’s about being honest. It’s not about peacekeeping; it’s about justice. And when you start returning baggage, something amazing happens: you get lighter.
Let Them Feel the Weight
The next time someone tries to hand you a bag, ask yourself: Did I pack this? If the answer is no, hand it back. Let them feel the weight. Let them deal with the mess.
Because here’s the truth: you’re not their bellhop. And if they’ve been carrying that baggage for years, maybe it’s about time they figured out what’s inside.
By Michael Kelman Portney
Founder of Radical Accountability and Deliverer of Baggage.
