When I was young, simplicity was boring. Now, in my ripe old thirties, simplicity is warmly welcomed with both hands. With growing responsibility and family, comes the need to simplify – both materially and otherwise. Much has been said on cutting down on stuff – this is the era of minimalism. However, in my opinion, it is the clutter in our heads that is more damaging and wasteful.
The insurgence of the iGadgets ensure that a million distractions are a mere finger tap away. The amount of information that is accessible to us ensure that we are in a perpetual state of confusion – a million choices, a million opinions – how do we decide what is right or what is best? The increased quality of life gives us more time to spend analyzing and overanalyzing things (when we are not working that is). Is it better to invest in stocks or bonds? Should I send my kids to public or private school? Should I be a stay-at-home-mom or a working mom? Organic food or not? After a point, this starts to become clutter.
For me, it is important to simplify what’s in my head – or in other words prioritize the things I want to spend time thinking about. I try to do this by reflecting on what we tell our kids – happiness is key. Of course it hard to practice – often times the clutter weighs me down and I don’t know what makes me happy. But some amount of self-realization has been crucial to figure out what’s important to me and help prioritize the things I do.
:: Creative outlet. I don’t desire to be famous but I desire to be creative. This I have realized, is very important to me – I draw a sense of self-worth and purpose from being creative. I spend time doing things that require creativity – be it photography, sketching, painting furniture, writing. I may not be great at any of these but the journey is what I enjoy most.
:: My family. I draw a great sense of contentment from being with my family. Watching my daughters grow up with a zest for life brings me great joy. Much as I crave the carefree days before the kids, they have brought me more joy than anything else. The adage says that a mother’s love for her child is the purest and unconditional. My daughters have taught me that the love of a child for its mother is equally pure and unconditional or more so. Giving them a good life is my highest priority.
That’s it. Also, I have lately realized that it is OK to simply do nothing. Just smelling the roses and watching a bee flitting about on a lazy summer afternoon is good.
Roving Eye Photography 