Savoring Simplicity

Paring Down and Lightening Up

Oh, how we over-complicate our lives! We over-analyze, over-stuff and over-medicate ourselves - with thoughts and expectations, with food and drink, with plans and dramas of our own making. We take the simple gift of life and over-decorate it until it is so stuffed and heavy we can barely stand.

It's tempting, especially in a world when we are offered so many opportunities to consume ever more. We can hardly take a step without being offered some tantalizing promise of more and better, some miracle cure that will answer all our prayers. We can hardly help ourselves, it seems, since our brains are wired to revel in such novelty, to chase after the next big thing.

Knowing this, we are in a position to act with greater wisdom and balance. We can see through the promise of the “new and improved,” understanding that it rarely delivers. We can hold close to the knowledge that in the endless search for better, we are often left feeling worse.

In the coming season, let's simplify our lives. Let's clear out space  - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually - and watch what happens in that beautiful and unclaimed breath. Let's loosen our grip on the hollow promise of more and better. Let's return home to the simple and the soulful, the easy and the open, the gifts of the world that already shine all around us.

It's not so hard, once we remember that we already have everything we need in order to be happy, right here and right now. We don't need anything other than clear eyes and enough space for life to reveal its many gifts. Miracles already abound in the present moment - nothing extra is needed.

Let's clean out our closets and clear our schedule and toss out everything that's not dear to us. Let's let go of commitments that no longer shine. Let's turn down the noise. Let's clear out a little head space. Let's let go of tired emotional habits that drag us down. Let's pare down our lives until we are left with a life that feels free and filled with both inspiration and delight.

Little by little, we’ll find ourselves with a less cluttered mind, a more liberated body and days enlivened by meaning and presence. We'll be left with more time, more space and plenty of room to breathe. We’ll learn to savor whatever is offered to us with a welcoming spirit and with deep appreciation.

And, once we've cast aside the unnecessary and untreasured, let's resist the urge to blindly fill the new space we've created. Let's hold close to the long-held values and loves that have carried us this far with such faithfulness and care. Let's return our own solid ground and refuse to let the world's busy-ness bury us again.

We have enough right here and now. Life already knows how to flow in its own beautiful way, enlivening us from head to toe. And surely it will do so as our commitment to paring down makes more than enough room for life to slip through us again with ease and delight.