Today I put up a post where Winnie the poo is having a dialogue with Piglet. The conversation goes, "What day is it?", Piglet says "It's today", to which Poo says, "My favorite day." I had posted this a few years back on FB and it popped up today and I re-posted saying "Ahh...beauty of simplicity". One of my friends made a comment. She said "how and why did our lives get so complicated?"
That made me think. It was a valid question and I did answer it in short. But I wanted to blog about it cause it lingered in my mind. I do believe things have become complicated, from the time I was a child to now. It's not just becausee I am older but the times have changed. But does that necessarily have to be complicated? I don't think so.
I think part of our complications stem from excessive need to have and to control. I think for most of us it's not even something to be questioned. We are raised to want and to control, to put it bluntly. I mean when we are young, we need to grow up, look good, get a good education, have a career, get married, have a family, a house, car and nice vacations and the list goes on and on. So we are taught to want. Then when things don't go the way we want them to, we are required to find a way to bring them back to alignment with what we want. If our grades are not good, we get a tutor. If our school is not good we go to a new school. If we don't look good, we put make up or get constructive surgery. If we don't like our partners we find new ones and on and on and on...so we are asked to and trained to maneuver variables so that we can get what we want. But does it always work like that?
Not really.
I was once such a person. I had plans and goals. I was determined to achieve them. Most of my goals and plans were around getting a very good education, getting a high paying job that would allow me to rise through the ranks well enough to earn lots of money. A house...not a husband but a house where I can live luxuriously. And the ability to travel and spend time doing what I'd like to in my spare time. It was ambitious. I don't think I started out in those exact terms but as I moved on in my life that's how it took shape. I was energized, motivated and felt fully in control. It was a good feeling to have. When it wasn't like that I was in total despair. My mothers has those stories where when things didn't go my way, how frustrated and angered I was. I remember some of it but forgotten most.
But it didn't last for much long. In the first few years of my thirties it all came to a gradual stop. I was incredibly sad and frustrated yet again. All the planning and controlling to make things better didn't work life that any more. Partly it was because I couldn't make plans anymore. Most things that felt out of place were within my own heart. I was good at pushing and shoving things outside of me to get what I wanted. But there came a time, I couldn't do that anymore. I don't think I was less skilled. But somehow I was not able to. That caused me to swell up, in anger, frustration, sadness. None of those feelings I could control and move around to make myself feel better. I think I exploded within myself many a times. I was barely able to hang in.
But with time things started to change. Partly because I was able to learn to handle my emotional world a little bit better. As my emotional world started to spin a little less fast, things started to settle and a new horizon appeared.
In it was much more light and ease. I had little plans now, and goals to achieve. No set timelines whatsoever. In fact it was like a free fall. Quite nice. I think I am still in it. Now I refuse to make things complicated for myself. I am very aware of my emotional world. It's the start of all complications. It's hard to notice for most of us unless it's fully charged. But I have had lost of time for myself to slow down and with that allow myself a glimpse of the early starts of my emotions. Now when I feel the itch, I know to look at it directly. Instead of launching myself into a crazy scratching frenzy, I can be with it until the urge it manageable. I am using it as an analogy for emotions. So I catch myself early enough (not at all times but good enough), so that I don't act and speak on it. It's the outcomes of our complicated emotional world that leads to complications outside. Then it's like a chain reaction. You are always chasing the tail and there is not end to it.
So simplicity is a choice. It's not a privilege that some of us have as a result of money, power or status or lack of it. It's a simple choice. What do we want? and what are we willing to sacrifice for it? That equations goes in both directions. If what I want is going to sacrifice my peace of mind, time for quiet contemplation or if it leads to restlessness, crazy planning then I go back to what I want and adjust my needs. It's as simple as that. We cannot ask for simplicity by asking for everything we crave for. It's like asking to lose weight and also wanting to eat sugary food everyday and not exercise. It just won't happen. It's the same with life.
We need to adjust somewhere. Either we adjust at the want level or we adjust at the outcome level. Either way we will have to change quite a number of deeply rooted beliefs in our lives. It's those beliefs that drive us to lose simplicity.
So if you want simplicity, look at what you want. Also look at what it will have as outcomes. Not just the good but also the bad. Look and investigate both. Then make a choice. If your choice leads to complications then you might have to go back and adjust your wants/needs. Unfortunately life doesn't always allow us to go back and fine tune things. But it teaches us a forward lesson. Then we can use that to understand our wants/needs in the future. It has to come from a clear and understood experience otherwise you will follow the same old pattern and end up with more complications.
But what I wanted to stress it that simplicity of life is a choice. We have many choices at any given point in time. We need to be fully aware and honest about why and how we chose them and what the outcomes are. At least that's what I have learnt up to now.
I was once such a person. I had plans and goals. I was determined to achieve them. Most of my goals and plans were around getting a very good education, getting a high paying job that would allow me to rise through the ranks well enough to earn lots of money. A house...not a husband but a house where I can live luxuriously. And the ability to travel and spend time doing what I'd like to in my spare time. It was ambitious. I don't think I started out in those exact terms but as I moved on in my life that's how it took shape. I was energized, motivated and felt fully in control. It was a good feeling to have. When it wasn't like that I was in total despair. My mothers has those stories where when things didn't go my way, how frustrated and angered I was. I remember some of it but forgotten most.
But it didn't last for much long. In the first few years of my thirties it all came to a gradual stop. I was incredibly sad and frustrated yet again. All the planning and controlling to make things better didn't work life that any more. Partly it was because I couldn't make plans anymore. Most things that felt out of place were within my own heart. I was good at pushing and shoving things outside of me to get what I wanted. But there came a time, I couldn't do that anymore. I don't think I was less skilled. But somehow I was not able to. That caused me to swell up, in anger, frustration, sadness. None of those feelings I could control and move around to make myself feel better. I think I exploded within myself many a times. I was barely able to hang in.
But with time things started to change. Partly because I was able to learn to handle my emotional world a little bit better. As my emotional world started to spin a little less fast, things started to settle and a new horizon appeared.
In it was much more light and ease. I had little plans now, and goals to achieve. No set timelines whatsoever. In fact it was like a free fall. Quite nice. I think I am still in it. Now I refuse to make things complicated for myself. I am very aware of my emotional world. It's the start of all complications. It's hard to notice for most of us unless it's fully charged. But I have had lost of time for myself to slow down and with that allow myself a glimpse of the early starts of my emotions. Now when I feel the itch, I know to look at it directly. Instead of launching myself into a crazy scratching frenzy, I can be with it until the urge it manageable. I am using it as an analogy for emotions. So I catch myself early enough (not at all times but good enough), so that I don't act and speak on it. It's the outcomes of our complicated emotional world that leads to complications outside. Then it's like a chain reaction. You are always chasing the tail and there is not end to it.
So simplicity is a choice. It's not a privilege that some of us have as a result of money, power or status or lack of it. It's a simple choice. What do we want? and what are we willing to sacrifice for it? That equations goes in both directions. If what I want is going to sacrifice my peace of mind, time for quiet contemplation or if it leads to restlessness, crazy planning then I go back to what I want and adjust my needs. It's as simple as that. We cannot ask for simplicity by asking for everything we crave for. It's like asking to lose weight and also wanting to eat sugary food everyday and not exercise. It just won't happen. It's the same with life.
We need to adjust somewhere. Either we adjust at the want level or we adjust at the outcome level. Either way we will have to change quite a number of deeply rooted beliefs in our lives. It's those beliefs that drive us to lose simplicity.
So if you want simplicity, look at what you want. Also look at what it will have as outcomes. Not just the good but also the bad. Look and investigate both. Then make a choice. If your choice leads to complications then you might have to go back and adjust your wants/needs. Unfortunately life doesn't always allow us to go back and fine tune things. But it teaches us a forward lesson. Then we can use that to understand our wants/needs in the future. It has to come from a clear and understood experience otherwise you will follow the same old pattern and end up with more complications.
But what I wanted to stress it that simplicity of life is a choice. We have many choices at any given point in time. We need to be fully aware and honest about why and how we chose them and what the outcomes are. At least that's what I have learnt up to now.
No comments:
Post a Comment