For the last dozen
years, I’ve been living a (relatively) simple life. At times, the complexity of
my life grows, and I renew my commitment to living simply.
Living a simple
life is about paring back, so that you have space to breathe. It’s about doing
with less, because you realize that having more and doing more doesn’t lead to
happiness. It’s about finding joys in the simple things, and being content with
solitude, quiet, contemplation and savoring the moment.
I’ve learned some
key lessons for living a simple life, and I thought I’d share a few with you.
1. We
create our own struggles. All the stress, all the
frustrations and disappointments, all the busyness and rushing … we create
these with attachments in our heads. By letting go, we can relax and live more
simply.
2. Become
mindful of attachments that lead to clutter and complexity. For example, if you are attached to sentimental items, you won’t be
able to let go of clutter. If you are attached to living a certain way, you
will not be able to let go of a lot of stuff. If you are attached to doing a
lot of activities and messaging everyone, your life will be complex.
3. Distraction,
busyness and constant switching are mental habits. We don’t need any of these habits, but they build up over the years
because they comfort us. We can live more simply by letting go of these mental
habits. What would life be like without constant switching, distraction and
busyness?
4. Single-task
by putting your life in full-screen mode. Imagine
that everything you do — a work task, answering an email or message, washing a
dish, reading an article — goes into full-screen mode, so that you don’t do or
look at anything else. You just inhabit that task fully, and are fully present
as you do it. What would your life be like? In my experience, it’s much less
stressful when you work and live this way. Things get your full attention, and
you do them much better. And you can even savor them.
5. Create
space between things. Add padding to everything. Do half
of what you imagine you can do. We tend to cram as much as possible into our
days. And this becomes stressful, because we always underestimate how long
things will take, and we forget about maintenance tasks like putting on clothes
and brushing teeth and preparing meals. We never feel like we have enough time
because we try to do too much. But what would it be like if we did less? What
would it be like if we padded how long things took, so that we have the space
to actually do them well, with full attention? What would it be like if we took
a few minutes’ pause between tasks, to savor the accomplishment of the last
task, to savor the space between things, to savor being alive?
6. Find
joy in a few simple things. For me, those include
writing, reading/learning, walking and doing other active things, eating simple
food, meditating, spending quality time with people I care about. Most of that
doesn’t cost anything or require any possessions (especially if you use the
library for books!). I’m not saying I have zero possessions, nor that I only do
these few things. But to the extent that I remember the simple things I love
doing, my life suddenly becomes simpler. When I remember, I can let go of
everything else my mind has fixated on, and just find the simple joy of doing simple
activities.
7. Get
clear about what you want, and say no to more things. We are rarely very clear on what we want. When we see someone post a
photo of something cool, we might all of a sudden get fixed on doing that too,
and suddenly the course of our lives veer off in a new direction. Same thing if
we read about something cool, or watch a video of a new destination or hobby.
When someone invites us to something cool, we instantly want to say yes,
because our minds love saying yes to everything, to all the shiny new toys.
What if we became crystal clear on what we wanted in life? If we knew what we
wanted to create, how we wanted to live … we could say yes to these things, and
no to everything else. Saying no to more things would simplify our lives.
8. Practice
doing nothing, exquisitely. How often do we actually do
nothing? OK, technically we’re always “doing something,” but you know what I
mean — just sit there and do nothing. No need to plan, no need to read, no need
to watch something, no need to do a chore or eat while you do nothing. Just
don’t do anything. Don’t accomplish anything, don’t take care of anything. What
happens is you will start to notice your brain’s habit of wanting to get
something done — it will almost itch to do
something. This exposes our mental habits, which is a good thing. However, keep
doing nothing. Just sit for awhile, resisting the urge to do something. After
some practice, you can get good at doing nothing. And this leads to the mental
habit of contentment, gratitude without complaining.
Of course, these
are not the only lessons you’ll need for living a simple life. But the best
ones are the ones you discover yourself. Try these and see what happens — I
think you’ll find out something beautiful about yourself, and about life.
The best kind of
simplicity is that which exposes the raw beauty, joy and heartbreak of life as
it is.
To your success!
Bobby
