Life Doesn't Have to Be So Complicated

We really do a lot to complicate our lives, don't we?

Life doesn't happen to us. It just feels that way sometimes. But we make our lives happen. If you believe that's the case, then it's much easier to see that dilemmas in our lives are, in the vast majority of cases, the results of actions we ourselves take. Kind of puts us on the hook doesn't it?

I was thinking about this today because a blogger I follow used the word "antidisestablishmentarianism." Thankfully, she used it as part of a joke, but it reminded me that we often go out of our way to complicate our lives, even when we don't need to. That word sounds big, but actually, it's just a way of saying that someone doesn't believe in the idea that establishments should be dismantled. Pretty straightforward.

Then why do we insist on doing things that make life appear so complicated? We schedule activities every day of the week, then have nervous breakdowns because we can't keep up with our obligations. We run up our credit cards, then wonder where all our money's going each month (it's called interest, and it makes your purchases cost 20% or more than the price you see on the tag). We chase having more money as a goal, then we bemoan the burdens of work pressures and dips in the stock market.

We seem to have an endless number of ways to complicate our lives. I'm a big fan of simplification. Once we're aware of what we're setting in motion (and that we set everything in motion in the first place), we're much less likely to create lives filled with complications.