Too often we fail in our efforts to simplify our lives because we haven’t thought through what is giving rise to the complexity we’re trying to eliminate. Getting rid of your cell phone might save you some money, but doing might actually complicate your life if you haven’t dealt with the root of the problem—the desire to be connected, the need to talk, the fear of missing out—then you will end up taking extraordinary measure to make up for the absence of the cell phone. On the other hand, if you can successfuly deal with your connectedness, your gabbiness, your clinginess, then you may not only be able to get rid of your cell phone, you may also get email and internet and telephone usage under control.
Here are a few root causes you might think about tackling:
- News of the day. When thinking about a bit of news, develop the habit of asking yourself: would it have made any difference in my life if I hadn’t know about this? Not much that makes it into the national or even local news can pass this test. If you train yourself to ignore news that does not directly touch your life, you will soon find that you have little need for television and radio newscasts, newspapers, or news magazines. Talk radio and television punditry will also become uninteresting, because they spend all their time discussing news that does not affect you. Learn to interest yourself in what’s going on in your neighborhood.
- Passive entertainment. As you sit down to watch a movie, video, or television show, develop the habit of asking yourself: will I gain any benefit from this beyond occupying the time it takes to watch it? The only lingering benefit of passive entertainment is being able to participate when your friends begin to kill time by recalling episodes of programs they’ve seen, e.g. “Remember that Brady Bunch when Jan wouldn’t wear her new glasses?” Learn to enjoy pastimes that will have some lasting benefit—handcrafts, conversation, reading good books, cooking, gardening.
- Daydreaming. Too often we would prefer to dream about what it would be like to have accomplished something than to actually do something to accomplish it. We dream about being known as a good writer, but we don’t work at our writing. We dream about being admired for our wisdom, but we don’t learn to behave wisely. We dream about entertaining crowds with our music, but we won’t practice changing chords smoothly or learn new ones. We dream about being successful in our business, but we don’t tend to the the small difficulties that inhibit our progress. Better to restrict ourselves to fantasies about things we are actually working towards—and to dream only about short term results, not the benefits of long years of labor that we may never actually get around to.
- Brass rings. Too often we think that something isn’t worth doing unless we can become rich, famous, and widely admired for doing it. We want to be known as the best at what we do, and so we avoid doing anything where we can only perform modestly. We innundate our children with enrichment opportunities, scared that we might miss detecting their gift and thereby deny them the opportunity to become a famous concert pianist or world-class ballerina. Better to lower our expectations and learn to enjoy the fruits, however modest, of labor we have learned to perform ourselves. And to learn that it is better to provide for yourself in all areas adequately, rather than to do one thing well and hire out the rest.
- Organization. Too often we assume that if something is worth doing, then it is worth organizing. Impromptu sandlot baseball games turn into coached Little League teams with practices and schedules. “Go outside and find something to do” turns into a playdate a week from Wednesday. Taking a meal to a harried and grateful friend turns into sign-up sheets at the church. Inviting a few friends to share birthday cake and exchange presents turns into themed birthday parties with planned and scheduled activities and rented equipment. Learning to spell turns into preparing for a spelling bee. Taking your kids to a living farm for the afternoon turns into a homeschool co-op field trip. Much time and energy can be saved by giving up on an organized activity in exchange for the original good impulse that spawned it.
Rick,
I found your blog a few weeks ago (I got to your site looking for Wendell Berry books–which I will soon buy from you b/c you have good prices and good reviews) and it has been good to find that someone who has almost nothing in common with me demographically can be so like minded philosophically. Makes me feel not so crazy. The first four points you make above are pretty straight forward–or at least people aren’t confused at having it explained to them–the 5th one, organization, is SO hard to convey to young urban and suburban churchgoers. I found myself expressing exactly what you have said to a group of young parents at church, and I have never felt so misunderstood. It was a foreign idea to them. These days, ministering the gospel to one’s family, working at home, and not “signing up” for church activities makes one appear unfriendly and uninvolved. Anyway, I am glad to have found your fairly priced books as well as a blog I can peruse for good stories and sound parenting advice from someone further along on the path than I.
Emily, I find the same to be true. After years of fearing that I would be totally isolated if not involved in organized church activities, I am attempting to make the change come what may. I am dropping all but one organized activity (I already committed to that one for the year) and I am going to start with simply inviting over one young mother at a time who is open to the idea of homeschooling simply. I’m not even sure that there are any yet, but I have three potential invitees. And I wouldn’t have known these mothers to begin with if I hadn’t attended women’s groups. I think that perhaps what we’re seeing is an urban/suburban problem of scale, and so far I haven’t found a very good way of making our large community feel small without also making it feel specialized. For that matter, I’m not limiting myself to homeschoolers or parents; it’s just that school and corporate life seems even tougher to crack.
I think that Rick has found a nice answer in his farming community. But since you (unless I’m assuming too much) and I likely live where we do because our husbands want certain kinds of jobs, I’m not sure what our answer is, other than persisting in our convictions in kindness and faith.