On Simplicity

For a little bitty word, “simple” can be big-time daunting. The mere thought can conjure up ideas of hand-cranking appliances and whittling your own kitchen table. Or, it can make some folks think of giving away all their possessions and wearing burlap for the rest of their lives.

If you’re interested in the idea of living a simpler life, but aren’t ready to retire to a convent or monastery, consider taking some baby steps toward simplicity.

You might:

Choose one room to make into a sanctuary, and leave everything else as is.

Pick one day a week to cut down on the activities and commitments in your life.

Find three things in your closet that you can give away and never miss.

Make a list of the job responsibilities you could do from home, just to get your brain rumbling.

Learn how to make one easy dinner, and then fall back on it a couple of times a month. (I like making a pizza with ready-made crust, and my mom loves to do eggs for dinner on easy nights.)

Schedule in time to do nothing but breathe. Sometimes 10 minutes is enough. (You can spare 10 minutes, right?)

Find one good place to keep your keys and put them there every time you come home.

Set a Gmail account and archive every conversation you’re done with but want to hang onto.

Brainstorm ways that you can go “incognito” for a period each day, where you disconnect from the phone and computer. (You may need to create a special code with your family for true emergencies.)

What are some other good “baby steps” the average person can take to live a simpler life?  Add in your ideas below!

photo credit: billerr

One day you’re a rock star, jamming down the road with rock radio blasting, ready to kick ass and screw The Man. The next day, you’re subtle and sophisticated, enjoying a perfectly aged glass of scotch and nodding your head to NPR. Tomorrow, who knows? After all, you are a complicated and extremely nuanced individual.

In my life, the scenario plays out something like this. I see a picture, read a poem, or conjure up an image of a specific type of woman. It clicks. In my head, I think, “Ooh. That’s who I’d like to be. Boy, am I glad I had this realization! Life is going to be so easy from now on since I know who I am!” I imagine the lifestyle that goes along with this image, and it feels unimaginably right. If life can be considered a puzzle, I’ve just solved it. Smooth sailing and effortless happiness await.

The glitch comes when I wake up the next day and feel like a completely different person.

“Ugh. I can’t believe I wanted to live on a sailboat and wear nothing but white blouses and turquoise jewelry. Geez. I wouldn’t be able to drink red wine and make giant clay sculptures. What was I thinking?”

The Truth Behind Embracing Simplicity

Okay, so the delusional internal monologue above is a bit of an exaggeration, but not that much. Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to: Life gets simpler when we admit that we’re complicated. We’re full of contradictions, disagreements, and competing interests, and that’s okay.

Living a simple life doesn’t have to involve pigeonholing yourself into a particular lifestyle or ideology. You can geek out one day and scream your head off for your favorite NFL team the next. You can revel in getting your hands dirty and then enjoy a foo-foo spa day (a borrowed term, I assure you).  Yes, you can even be a Republican on one issue and a Democrat on another.

Realizing that you’re contradictory can be a bit difficult. After all, if you don’t know who you are or what you believe, how can you have any impact on the world? It’s a valid concern. But in reality, there’s nothing wrong with fluidity, gray areas, and flexibility. They add nuance to life, and bring humanity into each and every thought you have.

Handling the Gray Areas of Life

Whatever mood you’re in, enjoy it to the fullest. Don’t worry about whether you’re acting out of character. There’s no script you have to follow.  And if your tastes change, roll with it. You’re still you, and your core values are still the same, regardless of the packaging or policy that’s currently in debate.

This is equally true of taking positions on issues. Important issues are usually complex. Despite what you hear on MSNBC, changing your mind or being flexible is not flip-flopping. You’re allowed to see both sides of the coin without always having to reconcile your choices into black and white policy. Sometimes it’s not so much an issue of being a monolith for an ideology as it is being a master chef mixing unusual ingredients in surprising amounts.

After all, you’re made of a million different experiences, interactions, and relationships, each of which affects you in a different way. Of course you’re complicated! You don’t have to let go of your brilliantly faceted worldview to live a simple life. In fact, I can think of few things more simple than accepting your complexity.

Here are just a few tips to help you embrace your complexities while still living simply:

Do consider why you’re drawn to a certain image, style, or idea. Look beyond the basics to see the core value(s) it represents and focus on that.

Don’t retool your whole life each time you want to change things up. Keep your surroundings neutral and always keep your inner circle connected and along for the ride.

Do find inexpensive ways to indulge your different interests. Read a book, write a white paper, join a club or message board, or check out a show or local event instead of buying $10,000 in hobby equipment.

Don’t worry if your interests change. It’s just a natural evolution, or a part of an ebb-and-flow cycle. If an interest is truly important to you, you can come back to it anytime.

Do embrace nuance. Gray areas are okay to live in, regardless of what anybody tells you. Besides, there are more ideas to explore there, anyway, and more people to meet and learn from.

Don’t feel like you have to cram yourself into a “yes” or “no” answer for anything. It’s okay to see and even agree with both sides of an argument.

Let me know what you think. Is having a crystal clear knowledge of who you are and what you think more important I give credit for? Or is there value to admitting that complexity and contradiction are part of your life? Give me your brutally honest answers in the comments!

photo credit: Philipp Hilpert - Philography

photo credit: mugley

It’s been too long since I’ve linked out to the fantastic resources outside of this blog! The ugly truth is that while links posts don’t take a ton of brain power, they do take a ton of time (at least for me). While I’ve been snoozing, some great new sites have cropped up that I want you to know about, and seasoned blogs have been kicking out some very insightful pieces. Here we go!

First off, I’d recommend checking out Simple Sapien. This newcomer has some great things to say, and the focus is 100 percent on simple living. Check out 80 Ways to Simplify Your Life or What Is the Definition of “Simple”? to get started.

My Super-Charged Life tells it like it is with The Busyness and Hurriedness of Life Is Overwhelming. You probably already know that, but read this article for the “How to overcome the addiction to busyness” section.

The Wisdom Journal takes on the financial crisis with Where Do We Go From Here? How About Back to the Basics? I enjoyed the common-sense tone here, as well as the encouragement that we can take action immediately.

My Dollar Plan (Have you been reading the early retirement posts? Totally fascinating!) gave us Ideas for Frugal and Easy Cooking. This is so what I’ve needed, and I’m ready to give the pizza dough a crack.

Simple Mom has clearly had a few mental telepathy moments with me. Get Things Done at Home by Getting Stuff out of Your Brain is applicable to anyone, and truly helpful advice.

Frugal Dad asks, Does Spending Less Money Get Easier Over Time? I would say yes, it does, but I also agreed with his caveat. This is a wonderful question to be asking and discussing as most families are tightening their belts in some way.

Marc and Angel offer 77 Keys to Living Well Before You Die. It may sound morbid, but consider the opening lines: “Time flies.  Life is what you make of it.  Everyday is a day of opportunity. Think it.  Seek it.  Find it.  Live it.” Beautiful.

Work Happy Now reminds us that Imagination Isn’t Just for Kids. Here’s my favorite line: “Hey, dancing on a table can really get a party going.” A fun read and great underlying point.

PluginID has had some great, great, great stuff for the last few weeks, but my personal favorite was 10 Things You Are Not. I try to get this idea across pretty regularly, but it’s expressed far more clearly here.

An older item at TipNut caught my attention: 10 Tips for Mastering a Messy Home. If you’ve got a whole lot of mess, this piece can give you some good starting places.

Okay, this one’s not fresh, but MomGrind’s Wordless Wednesday last week is a fantastic reminder that simple can be beautiful.

The Simple Dollar hit home for me with The Psychological and Emotional Attachment to What We Have and What We Want. It’s based on Trent’s thoughts about the book, The Price of Privilege and really rang true.

Did I leave anything out? If you found some great stuff this week that’s worth sharing, drop a link in the comments so we can all check it out.

If you’ve got a hobby, you’ve probably got hobby clutter that goes along with it. Do any of the following sound familiar:

• Piles of unread books
• Baskets of yarn
• Cabinets full of specialized power tools
• Piles of fabric
• Car magazines and Blue Book editions strewn about
• Headphones, pedometer, and running magazines in a clump
• Notes and scraps of paper with inspirations and ideas

Yeah, I thought so. Hobbies come with a price, and that price is often a big pile of stuff.  It’s not the hobby that’s the problem, it’s the issue of storing all the accouterments that go along. These items need to be readily accessible to you on a daily basis, but out of your way. If you’ve got a problem with hobby clutter, consider trying some of the following ideas.

Try a zone defense. Keeping everything confined to one specific area can be a big help to you. First, when you need something, you know where to look, and that keeps projects moving along. It also keeps the clutter to just one area of your home, so your hobby doesn’t take over your home.  This doesn’t work for all hobbies, but it’s easier than you might imagine.

Customize some utilitarian storage. You can always look beyond standard storage solutions to find items that fit your needs and your home.  I constantly bring up using dressers as storage units, because that’s something that’s worked for me. But what about using toolboxes for your crafting? Or tackle boxes for jewelry making? Can old 24-pack beer boxes store your collection of electronics? (With the bottle separators in those boxes, they really are fantastic for smaller items.) By getting your items into a container, you have a place to stash everything when it needs to be out of sight.

Keep your secrets behind closed doors. If you’ve got the space, devote a room to your hobby, like a media room or a sewing room, or well, the garage. If that’s not a possibility, how about a closet? A shelf in a closet? An armoire in a closet? You get the idea. When you corral your hobby clutter behind closed doors, you give yourself room to breathe and get a bit messy. After all, your hobby should be fun, not an exercise in anal retentiveness.

Keep a drawer. Steal a drawer from the kitchen, from a dresser, from a nightstand, or anywhere you can find. I love drawers because they limit the amount of stuff you can keep tossing in them, and they keep your stash in one place. Even if you toss everything into a drawer in complete chaos, you’re still relatively organized and the clutter is out of sight. Done!

Try hobbies on wheels. Rolling carts can be pretty awesome. If part of your storage issue is that you work on your hobby in multiple places, consider investing in storage that moves with you. Kitchen carts can be cool and functional in just about any room, and colorful kids’ toy storage can also add a fun element to your goodie stash. Some storage carts are made specifically for scrapbookers, but there’s no reason why they can’t be adapted to other needs.

Have a place for everything. The final rule on hobby clutter is that everything needs to have a place to go when you’re not working on it. Whether it stays there on a regular basis or not is beside the point. Anything that has a home can be cleaned up. Anything without a home is always going to be clutter. You may need to clean out other areas to make room, or invest in new storage items might work for you. Either way, take an afternoon to find a way to put every piece of hobby paraphernalia away. Then, don’t fill up that spot with something else. The old adage of “a place for everything and everything in its place” is 100 percent true, and it’s your ultimate weapon against hobby clutter.

So what works for you? And what hobbies are best and worst for building up stuff? Head into the comments to leave your ideas.

A fulfilled life is all about learning. Whether it’s something easy (understanding NFL penalties) or something highly challenging (nanoscience), learning is life. This blog has been a huge wave of learning for me, and it’s been fantastic. The truth is, I’m addicted.

So, what do you want to learn? Gimme three things you’re interested in! Here’s mine:

1. How to make my grandmother’s Swedish pancakes (she never wrote the recipe down!)
2. How to speak another language (I’m sadly monolingual)
3. How to meditate (I really struggle with quieting the inner monologue)

What’s stopping you from learning these things? Are there any people out there who can help you learn them? Give me the spill on your educational aspirations. I can’t wait to hear them!

photo credit: greenasian

McDonald’s turned the phrase, “You deserve a break today,” into marketing gold. The idea that we all work hard and deserve a treat was incredibly successful. You’ve heard it countless times in stores, as shoppers talk themselves into purchases. You’ve probably used this line yourself a few times. I know I have.

I doubt I ever will again, though, after a recent event. My mom started going through my grandmother’s journals a few weeks ago. These weren’t diaries of feelings and emotions. They were essentially a recording of the day’s events. What did my mom find out?

Did You Round up Any Livestock Today?

Grandma worked hard. Every day. For decades. She did it all, from getting up early to help feed a lot of hungry boys and manage the ranch (and the occasional loose cow roundup) to daily dusting to keep the country dirt from building up in her home. Occasionally, Gram would grab a cup of coffee with a friend, but most days were consumed by hard work. (After the second or third entry that listed “Ironed for four hours,” Mom gained a brand new appreciation of polyester and synthetics.)

Did my gram deserve a break? Certainly more than most of us working 9 to 5 jobs do. So where does the “I deserve it” mentality come in? You win the prize if you guessed “freakin’ genius marketers.” How do you get people who don’t need more consumer goods and can’t afford them anyway to spend, spend, spend? By proliferating the idea that “you deserve it.”

The Cult of Deserving and the Truth of the Matter

This philosophy is seductive. It’s a pat on the back. It’s a “well done, pal” in a world that doesn’t always recognize our efforts. It’s an ego boost and a way to set yourself apart from everyone else. (Surely Bob in accounting spends more time playing Solitaire than you, you deserve that second cinnamon roll!) But it the end, it’s simply a platitude, and an empty one at that.

Here’s the truth: you do deserve a break. But you deserve better than a break that simply eats at your income and forces you to work longer and harder. You deserve the chance to work hard to reach your dreams, not to be sucked in by a cheap marketing ploy. The next time you’re tempted to splurge on a take-out meal or a new gadget, catch yourself when you say, “I deserve it.” Think of what you truly want in life, and put your energy and money towards that.

photo credit: Mannequin-

My husband has been laid up for about a month now. It hasn’t been easy, but it also hasn’t been that hard, even with a recent out-of-town conference thrown in. I have picked up some new tricks along the way. And come to find out, I have a lot of fun planning out meals so that we eat new and different things. (The garlic salmon? Good! The crab won-tons? Not so much.) We’re about halfway through with this little experiment, which is just a euphemism for “Sara does all the work,” and here’s the main things I’ve taken away so far.

Having a range of basic skills makes your life easier. I needed to wear far more hats than usual over the past few weeks. It became very clear that by avoiding some tasks, I’d only made life harder for myself. Taking the time to learn basic skills like cooking, tracking finances, lawn care, and auto maintenance makes your life easier and are all well worth the investment of time to learn.

Going on the “To Do” List: Learn how to change a sprinkler head.

Family and friends are worth their weight in gold. Freshly prepared beef stew delivered to your door? No one but family or a really good friend is going to do that for free. Because we’re fortunate enough to have good family relations, we had a built-in support network. From hot baked cinnamon rolls and the occasional lawn mowing to having friends to call at all hours of the day, it was a joy to remember that there are people in the world you can count on. Maintaining these relationships is a great way to help everyone, including yourself, make life simple during challenging times.

Going on the “To Do” List: Add in birthday reminders to the calendar and send out cards or make a phone call.

Plan ahead to be nice. We talked ahead of time about how easy it would be to get crabby with each other. After all, I’m frustrated to be doing all the work and he’s frustrated because, well, he can’t frickin’ walk. We talked ahead of time about how important it would be to treat each other nicely. We also talked about how we’re probably going to screw it up every once in a while. (I’m telling you, he’s trouble when he doesn’t have anybody else to zing all day!) So far, so good. By talking about our concerns and mapping the probable pitfalls ahead of time, we’ve been able to get frustrated and annoyed without taking it out on each other. At this point, it’s been pretty much a non-issue as a result.

Going on the “To Do” List: Make a list of nice things I can preemptively do for B the next time he’s stressed out.

Confidence and guts can make life simpler. I could whimper and whine about all the slack I’m having to pick up, but in the end, it would all just take longer. Things are going smoothest when I just step up to the plate and handle the issue, even if it makes me uncomfortable. As it’s played out, a certain amount of confidence comes from knowing that I can’t possibly screw things up half as badly as I imagine I can. Ah, sweet relief…

Going on the “To Do” List: Take on the next new project that comes across my desk, even if it seems like a challenge.