Christa, Day 16: Simplicity In Action

As I sit down to write this - with a glass of wine, no less - it's barely 6:30 p.m., dinner has been eaten by all, there's hardly a dish in the sink, and other than this, there's nothing absolutely pressing on my to-do list. Tedd is out and about with the P., possibly at the playground by now but maybe just wandering up and down the streets parallel to ours. Crickets are chirping just outside the window. The house is basically tidy, barring the fact that the kitchen counters are all in a tizzy because I caulked today.

Now I can't exactly credit all of this to the steps I and my fellow contributors have taken in the past two-ish weeks, I can't entirely say that this is just a fluke. Why am I drinking wine and blogging right now? Because a few days after Day 4, I unofficially said goodbye to Manolo for the Brides and Manolo for the Home. Because after Day 5, I started doing a little meal planning and figured out a dish washing scheme that seems to be keeping our wee kitchen mostly dirty dish free. Because as per my Day 7 post I have been making an effort to limit online play time during work time, and that left me with more time to devote to a super secret professional project that saw action last night and this morning, too.

Bear with me... this is just my roundabout way to try to find inspiration for today's voluntary simplicity idea:

Create a simplicity statement. What do you want your simple life to look like? Write it out. More here.

Sounds easy enough, right? But drafting a personal philosophy can actually be rather difficult - especially when you're asked to create one on the spot. The link in today's item seemed more complicated than guidelines for creating a simplicity statement ought to be, with revisions and inner q&a sessions, and a surprising use of the words "turbo charged". Simplicity and more specifically, voluntary simplicity, might be difficult to master initially, but it should become a habit, a life. It shouldn't require something akin to a business plan.

So keeping in mind that I want my simplicity statement to be simple, here's mine:

My goal is a life that never gets 

so complex I can no longer enjoy it.

End of story. Done. It covers all the bases. It reminds me of what I'm working toward. And to enjoy the stuff of life instead of always trying to create something more than life to enjoy. It can be applied to consumerism and our budget, my work life and my home life. It's something to ponder as I make decisions about the future and consider the detritus of the past. Plus, it's a great reminder that so many of the things we have been conditioned to think will make us happy frequently add another layer of unwanted complexity to our lives.