Life is simple. Let’s not overcomplicate it!

Be happy! Create your own destiny! Look on the bright side! Stay focused! All is possible! You must believe! Keep going! Be positive! Eat healthy! Get enough sleep! Exercise! Do what you love! Follow your heart! Settle down! Start a family! Have children! Take care of yourself and of your family! Let go of the negative and toxic thoughts, relationship, habits! Find your calling! Do not follow the well-known, walked before path! Be authentic! Trust your gut! Listen to your instinct! Watch your thoughts! Etc…you get the picture.

This very long (and of course not exhaustive) list reminds me of the old saying: the road to hell is paved with good intentions! Whenever you look around there will be something or someone telling you what to do, how to do it, when to do it and for whom. Books, blogs, podcasts, webinars, retreats all designed to tell us how to live and how to become better at it, are available for everyone and for every budget.

We are bombarded from all directions with advice, suggestions, indications. We are drowning under the weight of infinite choices, options and possibilities. Simple is not available anymore.

All is action. Immediate movement. Everything becomes an emergency, and all is rush, rush, rush towards accomplishment.

Everything around us requires our attention. We are being pulled away in antagonistic directions. Every second brings decisions to take, plans to make. And this became our overwhelming reality. A reality that is consuming all our energy, with us not even realizing it.

This almost impossible rhythm together with the continuous demands of the society we are living in have turned our lives into an uninterrupted obstacle race.

Is like we are going through a speed dating process with all that must be lived and achieved.

In this roller-coaster of actions, reactions and possibilities I wonder if you don’t feel, from time to time, like taking a break?! A break from all the pressure, a break from all the unstoppable drive of doing?

Just stop and breathe. For a few seconds. A few seconds of anchoring yourself to the moment. Anchor yourself to the second that will make you aware of you, of your body, of your needs. Disregard for a moment the voices, the suggestions, the options. Just breathe.

I know we cannot escape choices or the decision-making process, but we can learn to discern between what we ought to do and what is unnecessary.

In physics there is the notion of inertia – the tendency of the objects in motion to resist change. Simpler said – you keep doing and you keep moving. When change arrives or when is almost mandatory to take a break you tend to keep moving, keep doing. Blame it on inertia.

I do believe that life in its purest sense it is simple. And I have my beloved maternal grandmother in mind as example. She was so sophisticated and so complex in her simplicity. She took time to cook, time to read, and time to pray. Sunday was the day of God and the resting day. She kept all things and her life simple. She was stillness. She was serenity.

I know there will be voices saying that times have changed, that the technological progress is making our lives better, easier, superior. I know that we cannot compare apples with pears and that we do not live in caves anymore. I do agree and I do understand your arguments.

The context has changed, but the essence of every human life stayed the same. Instead of using the context to help the essence, we became trapped in the context. We became the prisoners of the context. We are suffocated by the details and we are forgetting the bigger picture. We are being pulled away from the simple life by the infinite choices, choices that use the alluring argument of making the simple life accessible. We are constantly distracted and encouraged to move, to make, to do, to choose. We are offered a plethora of scenarios, options, tools and possibilities to select from. And instead of becoming free, we became hostages. We are the captives of choices and options. The society managed to keep us distracted and managed to divert us from the essence. Made us believe that we need to be more, to do more, to have more options to be happy.

What I wanted to stress out is that in principle our needs are simple and similar for all of us. When making decisions or taking actions, we must keep this in mind. Remember that life is simple. Let’s not overcomplicated it with the misconception that we need more to make it better. We can make it better by keeping it simple.

And please bear in mind that the tastiest meals are the ones having the simplest recipes and the ones using basic ingredients.

Lots of love,

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