Simplify Your Life

Happy people simplify their lives

Everywhere you look, life is getting more and more complicated. While on the surface technology and social media may appear to simplify your life, there are always tradeoffs. What are some of the factors that seem to be moving our lives faster and making them more complicated? Here are a few:

·       More traffic

·       Increased consumer choices

·       Faster computers and modems and millions of websites to visit

·       Cell phone addiction

·       Time demands of all kinds

·       The clock and calendar that seem to be moving faster and faster.

·       Unlimited information on millions of subjects

·       All kinds of personal and career stressors

I could go on, but I am sure you are well aware of the areas of your life that seem to push you into more and faster.

I recently read a survey that said (I am always suspect of surveys, but here it is anyway) 85% of the population (USA) wanted more than anything else to simplify their lives. Yet these same very people keep buying more toys and faster computers. Interesting paradox. We have been led to believe that more makes it easier. Faster makes it easier. I don’t think so. 

Only when you determine in what areas you are guilty of complicating your life can you change, if you decide to.

Here are a few things to consider:

1.     Spend more time with nature. The relentless, yet relaxing, pace of nature can help you keep things in perspective.

2.     Every week throw something away or donate it. And don’t replace it with something else.

3.     Refuse to be prodded into buying the latest technology.  Faster computer chips may bring you information faster, but I’ll bet you can’t handle the information you have access to now.

4.     Take mini retreats (an hour, day weekend or week) and get away to relax and reflect on what is really important in life.

5.     Reduce the clutter in your life.  Do you really need all that stuff?

6.     Say no more often.

7.     Junk projects or activities that keep you stressed and filled with pressure and away from what is really important in your life.

8.     Spend more time with the people in your life who really matter.

9.     Don’t let other people’s agendas become yours.

10.  Relax. You are not going to get out of this life alive - so what’s the rush?

Happiness is inside out

Happiness!  Everyone wants it, searches for it, dreams of it and longs for it.  Are you happy?  Really happy?  If so, why? If not, what will it take for you to once and for all find and keep this illusive, yet seemingly attainable, life?

I have been miserable. I have been happy. And, I have spent time in that limbo state of wanting to be but not knowing how to be.

Happiness is not a thing, address, possession, bank balance, life position (retirement, married, single, parent, etc.). It is not something you can grasp, earn, keep, buy, learn, give away or know. Happiness is not anything that you go after. It will come after you relentlessly if you have that inner mental state or consciousness that says: I am happy no matter what is in my life.

This does not mean to imply that you will be happy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That would not be life as it was designed to be. It would also be exhausting. However, we were meant to be happy as a life destiny. Pain, grief, sadness, solitude and yes, even loneliness, are all valuable contributors to a humble, joyous, compassionate, loving, balanced and productive life.  

You cannot totally experience the thrill of victory without ever tasting defeat. You cannot completely bask in the sunshine of success if you have never been brought to your knees. And, you cannot know fully the joy of a happy disposition, spirit and demeanor without ever knowing unhappiness.

Life is a wonderful adventure; filled with every imaginable emotion, experience, test, adversity, achievement, mistake, and success.  Life is not, nor will ever be, perfect. Life is not a dress rehearsal for some later event. Life is now; what is happening now, what you are experiencing now, what you are learning now, what you are doing now, what you are dreaming now, and what you are afraid of now.

So, let’s begin the journey of a life filled with more peace, joy, understanding, balance and yes, happiness and success . . .