Simple

For the last several years, instead of "New Year's Resolutions," I've chosen a "Word of the Year."  Rather than set myself up for failure with a grandiose To-Do List , I try to set the tone for the year with a word I want to focus on, and then throughout the year, keep my eyes open for how that word and the concept behind it show up in my life and in the world around me.  What's really amazing about this exercise to me is how easy it is to find what I'm looking for.  If my word of the year is "light," everything I read seems to have something to do with light.  Conversations I have in person and online tend to lead to discussions about the darkness in the world and effects of light on the darkness.  Sermons and TED Talks and Webinars I encounter through my year of light inevitably connect, sometimes directly and sometimes obliquely, but it's always there.  It's like when you buy your first Toyota, and then suddenly it seems that everyone is driving a Toyota.  You find what you're looking for.  It was always there, but suddenly you are aware of it.

I've written before about my Simplicity journey, and my desire to simplify my life, declutter my stuff, and focus on what really matters and not on the unnecessary.  So, my word for 2025 is "Simple."  I recently subscribed to Simplify Magazine, by Joshua Becker, THE minimalism guru (by the way, if you are looking to live more simply, I highly recommend this magazine--it's online, so you won't clutter your space with more stuff, and it's only $20 for lifetime access to ALL issues, past, present, and future).  I read an article a couple weeks ago called "Stop Skimming Your Life" that really spoke to me.  Here's what I gleaned from the article:

  • "Maybe we can do it all, but we can't do it all at once."
  • "Everything can't matter at the same time.  It can't all have your attention."
  • "If you let in less, could you give more of yourself to what's important?  Could you trade some of the time you are skimming your life for a deep dive?"
  • "You have to stop doing things you want to do so you can do the thing you most want to do"--Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Ask "Demand or deserve?"--What demands your attention/what deserves your attention?
I think this is related to Courtney Carver's idea of starting with joy.  There are things in life that we must do:  things we get paid for, things we get a grade for, things that keep bad things from happening to us (like going to the dentist, paying the mortgage, taking out the garbage).  Everything else is extra.  Everything else is extra.  If we must do these things, it's because we have told ourselves that we must.  If it's extra, and it doesn't bring me joy, why would I make myself do it?  To go a step further, and connect it to the Simplify article, if it doesn't bring me joy, does it deserve my attention?  If it doesn't bring me joy, is it keeping me from doing something that does?

Now, before anyone thinks I'm advocating an "if it feels good, do it" lifestyle, there will be things that don't bring joy in the moment, but will do so over time.  I love to play the piano, but sometimes I find learning a new song tedious, especially when I reach a passage that I have to play slowly to learn the fingering, or work it into my motor memory, or figure out the best place to turn the page.  So frustrating, but even in the moment I can remind myself of the finished piece, and the joy I will derive from mastery.  I also love to cross stitch, but making a mistake and having to pull out stitches is the bane of every stitcher's existence.  No one finds joy in "frogging" (cross-stitch lingo for ripping out stitches).  The joy I will find in the finished piece, knowing it's as perfect as possible, far outweighs the lost time, the inconvenience, and the annoyance of fixing the mistake.  If I'm working on a piece as a gift, thinking of the person who will receive the gift and the joy it will (I hope) bring them is additional motivation to stay the course.  The point is, sometimes joy is in the journey, and sometimes it's in the destination.  

So, 2025 is going to be the year of Simple for me.  Deciding what is deserving of my time and what is just demanding.  Discerning what I want to give my time to and what is just taking it.  Remembering who I am--keeping what reflects that and letting go of what distracts me from that awareness.  I'm going to play fewer games on my tablet and read more books.  I'm going to buy less and give away more.   I'm going to focus on real-life relationships and spend less time on Facebook pages.  I'm going to replace the mantras of "Stuff" and "Produce" and "More" with "Simple."  

Happy 2025, all!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"The Rest Is Still Unwritten"

I had an idea of what I was going to write for this week, but then I was listening to Spotify's Happy Mix while doing some cross stitching this morning.  The mix is very well-named, and includes Bill Withers' "Lovely Day," a few Meghan Trainor ditties (💖💖💖), Sara Bareilles' "Brave," and "Born this Way" by Lady Gaga.  As always, though, when "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield came on, I had to stop everything and listen.  My list of uplifting songs is ever growing, but this one will always be in the top five.  As someone who has always had a creative bent, this song really speaks to me:  "Staring at the blank page before you/Open up the dirty window/Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find . . ."  Like Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" (yep, that's what that song is about!) for the 21st century.  I don't know about you, but a blank book thrills me down to my toes--all that untouched paper, all ...
Read more

Bruce Almighty

How can a Jim-Carrey-being-Jim-Carrey film make me cry?  How can one film be so irreverent and yet so overtly spiritual at the same time?  This morning I was watching Bruce Almighty  again while doing a little stitching.  It's probably the fifth time I've seen the film, and I found myself, as always, being moved by Bruce's transformation, the treatment of fervent and honest prayer, and the question of "unanswered" prayer.  I'll issue a spoiler alert here, but since the film is 20 years old, if you haven't already seen it, you probably aren't going to.   Just a not-so-little overview:  Bruce is a television news reporter whose career is going nowhere.  He's stuck doing human interest stories he sees as beneath him, but longs to be promoted to news anchor when a current anchor retires.  His dissatisfaction with his job spills over into his personal life, which he shares with his ever-faithful girlfriend, Grace, a kindergarten teacher, and ...
Read more

Being Sabbath

I'm losing count of things I've heard or read about Sabbath in the last few years.  While Sabbath is far from a new concept, it seems the recent resurgence of talk about Sabbath has coincided with the rise of the minimalism movement.  Marie Kondo talks about ridding oneself of things that are not useful, or don't "spark joy."  Margareta Magnusson brought awareness to the practice of "Swedish Death Cleaning," or decluttering so that your heirs don't have so much to deal with upon your demise.  The Minimalists,  Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, operate from the thesis that the less stuff we have, the more meaning we can find in our lives.  This is a spiritual concept--the more stuff we keep for ourselves, the less we have to share with others, the greater our carbon footprint, the further we find ourselves from God/our spirituality (" it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kin...
Read more