Simplicity...It's Complicated!

I really want to simplify my life. I want to wake up in the morning and be grateful. I want to brush my teeth and stretch and pray and grab a cup of coffee and quickly check my Facebook. And check my Facebook. And check my email. And look at my shop activity on Etsy. And see what the deal of the day is on Audible. And check my Facebook. And follow the links I find on Facebook. And quickly pop in at Pinterest, just to find a perfect photo for my next post, and look    at    the   fooood... And dammit! How'd it get to be 8:30 already??? I haven't worked out or eaten my simple, healthy breakfast or finished today's post, let alone tomorrow's, and didn't I promise myself I'd catch back up and get ahead of the game with my writing deadlines? I have orders to package and ship and laundry to do. I have to weed and water my side yard and file a bunch of stuff and clean the cat boxes. I should be in Arizona with my mom, or working at a real job. I have people to call and places to go and things to think about. My front door isn't going to find the perfect color and paint itself, you know. And what about things like oil changes and networking and vision boards and colonoscopies? Isn't today the day I have slated for washing all my exterior windows? I need new shoes.

Simplicity simple? NO. WAY.  Simplicity is so not simple. Simplicity takes work and thought and insight and commitment. Simplicity sheds the unessential and calls for an intensely honest assessment of what is truly important. It's your life, in 20 words or less. It's taking the "what matters most" approach. Simplicity is complicated.

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. ~ Mark Twain

The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity. ~ Douglas Horton

About 5 years back, I downsized to a smaller home and let go of loads and loads of stuff. Boxes and crates and truckloads of stuff was loaded up and given to others or thrown away. I've had at least 3 garage sales and keep thinning out my possessions, but I've still run short on horizontal space. Time to clear out even more. I crave emptier shelves. I want less to dust. My house would feel better with more open space. 

Even without all the "stuff" my son and I have managed to collect, it's still so tempting to fill my life with things that I should be doing, things that I have to do, and things I want to do. There aren't enough hours or storage space for what I think my life should be. I need to work harder, be smarter, socialize more, go on adventures, do more for others, be a better me. There's so much to do!!!

But what do I really need? How much do I need to have or do to live a healthy, happy, fulfilling life? Good question. Scary question. I need a home, of course, for myself and my pets and my son (whenever he chooses to come back). I need fresh water and the ability to procure and prepare food. I need weather appropriate clothing, and - possibly - at least one little black dress. Living where I live, keeping my well-maintained and filled with fuel is hugely helpful to a productive life. Electricity and indoor plumbing, while luxuries in other places, are necessities here. I need running water, at the very least, to maintain good standards of hygiene and to water my plants. My cellphone - a smartphone - brings huge convenience in a tiny package. My computer, my iPad, my WiFi, my vacuum, my washer and dryer, my refrigerator, my stove and microwave, my bathrooms - or at least one of them - outfitted with all the normal fixtures...heat, air, windows that open, a comfortable bed, tables, art, music, office doo-dads, good scissors, Advil, good tortilla chips... I am as needy as they come. And don't get me started on my to-do list or the fact that I feel perpetually guilty for not keeping up with Martha Stewart.

Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more." — John Kabat-Zinn

So how can I simplify my life? I can start by figuring out what I want my simple life to look like and work from there. On Zen Habits, I found a list of 72 ideas to simplify my life.  Haha! 72 simple ideas! But I think it looks like a good start. Joshua Becker (someone who has walked the simplified walk and lived to write about it) has written many books on the "hows" of simplifying your life and all the benefits that he and his family have reaped. The one I'm looking at is a Kindle book called Simplify. I can't endorse it since I haven't yet read it, but I'll let you know down the road. I'm excited about simplifying, no matter how complicated. 

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. ~ Henry David Thoreau

It's not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials. ~ Bruce Lee

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. ~ Lin Yutang

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful. ~ John Maeda

The more simple we are, the more complete we become. ~ August Rodin