The late beloved Claudia Harvill, who was a very successful real estate business woman,was known to often say “keep it simple, stupid,” which leads me to the heart of my subject of simplicity!
I think most of us destroy ourselves by fear of public opinion, of going in too many directions, trying to keep up with the Jones, of trading what we want most for what we want now, of having to have too many things regardless of who gets hurt in the process which leads me to one of my heroes of the past.
Henry David Thoreau, born in 1817 and the author of Walden’s Pond, said “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
He learned a great truth desperately needed today. He went apart for a year or so by himself to stay in a log cabin, located by Walden’s Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts.
I’ve been fortunate to spend time inside the replica of the cabin while visiting my oldest son, Perry, who lives near Boston.
It is a beautiful, peaceful setting.
The cabin is furnished, as it was back then, with only a small bed, a stove, a table and a couple of chairs.
I’m caught up with simplicity when I ponder how much creative time is wasted in the pursuit of getting more and more yet never satisfying the yearning deep within.
From my understanding he only took with him one rock and threw it away because of the time it took to dust it off and put it back in place.
Absurd? Perhaps that is a bit extreme but it teaches a valuable lesson we should heed today.
I think some solitude in the woods, with no media, would be beneficial to troubled teens who are always hooked up to background noise.
Why are we so scared to hear ourselves think?
I sense it takes a lifetime of practice of going apart, of getting into touch with ourselves, to hear our own thoughts but it’s in this space that we grow and become all we can become!
We must simplify lest we become lost in our pursuits.
It’s easy to lose our creativity if we are frenetic. We must focus on our talents — not put too many irons in the fire or we will be robbed of our quality time, preventing ourselves from centering down, getting into tune with ourselves.
We must hone our talents, sharpen our skills, polish our gift or we will become rusty in our crafts.
To become focused we must simplify or we will burn our energy.
We must look not to one side or backward in regret at lost opportunities, lest we become scattered and never achieve our dream. If we try to do all things equally well we won’t become all that we can be. Our creativity will be lost in the mundane things in life, of keeping our bodies fed, of caring for our grounds, of making our house a showcase.
If we leave our one small gift to take care of itself it will die!
To be gifted we must work at our talents daily and make our field of endeavor our focal point, our obsession. In return we will then make a meaningful contribution to those we touch.
It won’t come easily.
It’s more fun to work with our one talent knowing that “there will always be those greater and lesser than ourselves,” to quote Max Ehrmann, who wrote Desiderata.
The Bible still teaches that if we bury our talent that it will die and “we will have lived in the gray areas of life, knowing neither victory nor defeat,” to quote President Theodore Roosevelt.
Contact Sarah at [email protected]