What we carry matters. How we carry it changes everything.

The quote, “It’s not the load that weighs you down, it’s the way you carry it,” is often attributed to Lou Holtz and C.S. Lewis.

Holtz spent a lifetime coaching teams under pressure. Adversity was a given. Effort, responsibility, and teamwork? Always a choice.

Lewis, on the other hand, wrote from grief. He had recently lost his wife to cancer after already losing his mother to cancer at just nine years old. His faith broke. His certainty unraveled. He said what allowed him to keep going was connection, purpose, and the courage to carry on.

Two different paths. Same hard truth.

This lyric from the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song, Carry On, feels like a quiet companion to the same truth, “Carry on. Love is coming. Love is coming to us all.”

The load matters. But how we carry it changes everything.