It may seem as a contradiction but it has been my experience. Maybe, I over think stuff, maybe I am over-committed to stuff (and I don’t mean material stuff), but for many, the pursue of a simple life has started by abandoning all that is, and starting fresh; not my case. I love to hear stories about people who have made radical changes and quickly left their jobs, old life, material ties, and abandoned themselves to the pursuit of a meaningful and simple life, whether traveling the world, or doing something totally different – careers … Yes, I love those stories and deep inside, I wish I could do the same.

However, when I started the pursuit of a simple life, life got in the way of it. How it happens? To each its own, and circumstances are individual, that is the only explanation I have. It has taken work, time, and effort to start this pursuit – it almost takes all the fun out of it, right?

For me, the simple life goes beyond the abandonment of the current – it has taken the path of learning a new lifestyle, of changing career, understanding spirituality, and the attempt of moving physical locations, along with the systematic purging of the material, and the fulfillment of some material commitments as well. All that takes time, and it will take as much time as you are deep in it. Somehow, the simple becomes slow, systematic, complicated … far.

As long as there is an understanding of this reality, the pursuit of a simple life becomes a dream, a goal, an aspiration. You learn to ditch, you learn to do, you learn, and you learn, and at one point you get tired of learning and doing, and you want to learn to ditch more, but life becomes reality, and simplicity becomes a place down the road, and the wheels suffer wear and tear. It makes you think of the one who have jumped in the pursuit with no regrets and no second thoughts of what is behind – have they? I will never know – to each, its own.

One thing is for sure, the simple life does require other than a simplistic approach, at least, in my understanding. I have ditched, learned to do things different, to wait for the right time to be able to change physical locations, to change careers and to learn all needed to do that in the process, to deal with the close-minded, to deal with consequences, learned to accept time, and learned to let go of what doesn’t suit the simple life anymore – whether material, spiritual, or human.  In the meantime, I hope that time does not morph into lassitude, and pray that I don’t end up with broken wings.