"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen, and keep accounts on your thumbnail."Henry David Thoreau
Do you find that it is easy to fritter away your days? Your weeks? Your years? I was struck by this quote of Thoreau's while reading through a magazine the other day. It probably just hit me square between the eyes because I was walking about with a 'to-do' list of details clutched firmly in my fist. While I am also sure that the items on my list had a certain importance, after reading this quote I began to wonder.
What might I do to simplify? What might you? What would it take for me to stop frittering away precious time in the pursuit of details that may not really be important. Ahh, importance. There is the real issue, isn't it? What is it I find to be truly important? What do you? This assessment takes longer to produce than a to-do list so it is often easily avoided.
It is probably a fact that none of us will be able to go off into the woods to our own Walden as Thoreau did. So, whatever is truly important must be lived out right here in the midst of daily life, the stuff of work, family, friends, laundry, housework, shopping, cooking, the list goes on and on. Are these the details Thoreau was speaking of?
Somehow, I don't think so.I think he was really encouraging humans to take the time to peel away the layers of what doesn't matter to them and to focus on what does. At least I pray this is so. Each of us would answer the question differently. To spend the minutes of a day engaged in what one loves is to live the simple life. To create something of beauty….art, a meal, a friendship…is to live the simple life. To breathe deeply and savor the expanse of chest and lungs, exhaling into gratitude, is to live the simple life. To choose just enough words to say I love you, or better yet to show that love is our intention without words, is to live the simple life. So many ways to simplify.
What important details of your life would fit on your thumbnail? I'm looking at mine right now. It is a fairly small space to write what it ultimately important to me. But if I could imagine writing on this digit space, with, say, permanent ink, I might write….kindness, peace, hope, love. If I paid attention to those details alone, it would bring a very full life.