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Today's
Meditation:
We
live in a complex world, it seems, and it's important that
we learn how to deal in complexities if we're to survive
and thrive in this world. That seems to be what
people want us to believe, anyway. The truth of the
matter is, though, that we live in a pretty simple
world--but we've rejected simplicity in order to
"improve" our lives and make things
"better" for ourselves. We've complicated
our lives by buying more things to fill our house that's
too big for us, by taking out many credit accounts in
order to buy more things that we don't have the money for
yet, by committing ourselves to many causes and activities
and rejecting the possibility of having time to ourselves
to rest and relax and recharge our energy levels.
There
are artists who feel that the more complex the work, the
deeper the meaning, but those artists rarely are at the
forefront of their fields. There are coaches who
feel that their teams will be more effective at fooling
the opposition if they put in many complex and difficult
plays, but those teams rarely make it to the championship
games. Time after time we see that artists and
athletes who focus on the simple fundamentals of their
fields find success and fulfillment in what they do.
Life
is simple, and only through the simple can we truly
accomplish the marvelous. Of course, we have to
define marvelous--is it the new multimedia handheld device
that allows us to download music or movies over a phone
connection, or is it the self-assured young person who has
grown up with an appreciation of life and of him or
herself? Is it the $50,000 car or is it the new home
for a struggling family?
The
Spanish have a wonderful saying: "No me
compliques la vida." It means simply, don't
complicate my life. Keep things simple. That
doesn't mean that they avoid the complicated when it's
necessary to face it, but that they realize that the many
simple things in life truly do not need to be complicated,
for they're marvelous just as they are; they need no
change or improvement.
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