The Incredibly Complex Path to Simplicity

The trend for the last 15 years or so has been to seek simplicity as a path to happiness. Here is a list of books I found on my shelf: Simplify Your Life, Inner Simplicity, Living the Simple Life, The Overload Syndrome, Margin, Six Weeks to a Simpler Lifestyle, How to Want What You Have, and last but not least Simple Abundance. I'm not kidding. It is obviously not that simple. I think part of the problem for me, comes from another book on my shelf called "The Beautiful Life" by Alexandra Stoddard. My sister and I got this book from my grandma about 20 years ago. In the book the author talks about buying fresh flowers each week to make your home lovely. She talks about decorating for the seasons. She talks about all kinds of ways to make our homes and lives beautiful. Along the way somewhere I got hit on the head by this giant revelation: Beautiful Life is not the same as Simple Life. I shared this with my friend from Texas, Casey, when she called to "ask me permission" to get rid of all her houseplants. On one visit to her house I had tried to share the Beautiful Life with her, by encouraging her to buy all these lovely houseplants. I told her it was okay to get rid of them.

Houseplants are not simple. Gardening is not simple. PETS are not simple. Seasonal decorating is not simple. Traveling with children is not simple. Entertaining is not simple. Christmas is not simple.

Fighting cancer is not simple. Taking care of elderly parents is not simple. Helping a child with a learning disability is not simple. Having a spouse who doesn't pull his weight is not simple. Loving someone with depression is not simple. Using "creative financing" to pay the bills each month is not simple. Chronic pain is not simple. Being a working mother is not simple.

Life is not simple. No matter how many books we read and how full of "deep inner peace" we become, life will never be simple. It is much more complicated than buying all one kind of white socks and putting them in a basket by the door to get out of the house on time in the morning.

Practicing an instrument with a child is not simple. They are grouchy. They itch. They have chapped lips. The get up while you are talking and jump up and down on the sofa. They have their own ideas. They have to blow their noses. They don't like putting finger four on f-sharp. They don't like Haydn. They want to play soccer.

There is no book called "Learning to Play an Instrument Simply, With Children." But there are some simple ideas, that when used one at a time, can simplify the moment. Ideas that can make one half hour go by a little more peacefully and productively. Previously mentioned, Amanda Vick Lethco, pedagogy teacher from Texas, had her students keep a card file of three by five cards of teaching ideas. When lacking inspiration, we could look through our card file. I'm not going to ask anybody to make a card file, because that wouldn't be very simple, but I am going to try to share my practice ideas. Of course if you did want to run to Target and buy a colorful filing system to house your card file with labels and different colored cards and stuff that would be beautiful, Alexandra would approve.

Life is not simple. It will never be simple. There are only simple moments. And beautiful moments. Life can be Beautiful, with or without houseplants.