Tag: Simplicity

Simple Midlife Simplicity

As Simple As Common Clover
As Simple As Common Clover

Do you often feel overwhelmed?  Me too.

And if you don’t, you’re either brilliant or clueless – I’m guessing anyway.

Human tendency is to complicate things. More is better.  Keeping up with what others have or do.  Newer.  Bigger.

Here’s how I alleviate, not eliminate, the stress of our daily burdens:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Simple. Wise. Powerful.

But there is a complexity we must break through in order to get to simplicity.

And it may take us a lifetime.

Mid Life Lies

Life's Big Four
Life's Big Four

Do you lie to yourself?  We all do.

So?

So what are you going to do about it and when are you going to stop?

Mid Life Crisis.  Mid Life Celebration. Mid Life lies.

Life is about balancing life’s big four.  Life’s big four?

Yes. Life can be broken down into four basic segments:

  1. Mind
  2. Body
  3. Spirit
  4. Money

It’s simple.  People think simple isn’t important. Simple is the most important of all.

That’s why no one has focused on it relentlessly.

Until 1980.

Promise Me

Children Watch Everything We Do
Children Watch Everything We Do

Have you ever done something you weren’t supposed to do?  And in order to do it, you had to do it in a sneaky way?  And often, there was a close friend who had already done the thing, and they helped you?

Smoking, drinking, stealing, bad pranks, and so on.

Seriously, these are things adults do not make a conscious effort to teach children.  Can you imagine a Mother saying, “Come here son, it’s time you learned how to smoke cigarettes.”

Heard a Chantix commercial last night. Chantix helps smokers quit. Let me set the scene:

Mom comes on saying, “I smoked a pack a day for 25 years. I could not quit smoking, no matter how hard I tried.”

Until one day……

“I told my son to promise me he would never start smoking.”

He said, “Promise me you’ll quit.”

And the Cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon.  Little boy blue and the man in the moon……he turned out just like me…..my boy was just like me….

Cat’s In The Cradle

Cats In The Cradle
Cats In The Cradle

It was hard wasn’t it?

How can you pick one single solitary song, when there are ten’s of thousands, if not hundred’s of thousands of songs to pick from?

So, after re-reading the list from yesterday’s blog post, it just hit me this morning.

“Cat’s In The Cradle“, by Harry Chapin is my all-time favorite song.

Our son will turn out just like me. This song reminds me everyday to be careful what I say and do.

What about you?

Sorry

Simplicity is Complicated
Simplicity is Complicated

Simplicity is an elusive goal sometimes.

Ok, simplicity is elusive most of the time.

But so are a lot of things that are important.  Should that stop us from our pursuit?

There is only one, resounding answer to this question.

And maybe by tomorrow I’ll have my movie soundtrack song(s) to share with the world.  This was a fun, and frustrating, exercise.

And anything but simple.

Should have seen it coming.