Tag Archives: Simplifying

When It All Gets to Be Too Much

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Sometimes I feel like all I ever do is gawk at a computer screen. Between working in front of a computer and writing on a computer, there are days when I literally spend hours connected to technology. Then you add in the time spent on Facebook, Twitter, reading other blogs and the news, online shopping, and all the other things I end up doing on the internet and sometimes it all just gets to be too much. It’s a funny thing though, because even though I’m starting to get overwhelmed by hyper-connectivity, every time I pull away from the computer for a few minutes, I start to miss it. I start to wonder if anyone has said anything exciting on Facebook or if I’ve had any hits on my blog. I start to wonder if one of my favorite stores has put anything on sale online or if I have any email. It’s like I’m addicted to the screen–like I don’t know what else to do with myself if I’m not clicking around on the computer.

Yesterday I really started to stop and think about how much of myself I devote to screen time–and in doing so, how much of myself I take away from the people and things that should matter so much more than an email or an online sale. How often do I whittle away precious time with my husband by pulling out the laptop instead of sitting and talking to him? It’s amazing how the two of us can be in the same room, sitting right next to each other, and still be completely disconnected by the TV and internet standing between us.

I realize I’m starting to get burnt out and just need to take a break for a while. Fortunately, next week will be the perfect opportunity to do so. Darren and I will be taking a break together and will be cut off from internet, TV, video games, phone–the works. We’ll be spending time just the two of us without all the distractions of technology and hyper-connectivity.

I can’t wait to just sit and look at him. To look at the man who stole my heart in spite of all my fighting, the man who works so hard to provide for us and to show me his great love–just to sit and look at the big brown eyes that won me over 7 years ago and still win me over every single day. How could I ever pass those eyes up for a computer screen? Sorry to be so sappy, but I’m just starting to realize what I’ve been missing out on and can’t wait to really reconnect with a person, not the internet.

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” Henry David Thoreau

The Chasm Within

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When Darren and I bought our home, we bought it knowing (or hoping at least) that we would only live here for three years. Two of those three years have come and gone in a blink and now we are trying to determine where to go next. We would love to buy land in the country and build a house or maybe remodel an old farmhouse in need of some love. Darren spends the evenings perusing real estate websites looking for land and houses and then we spend the weekends driving around looking at what he’s found.

Since we’ve always planned on moving out of this house, I’ve never really put my roots down. I’ve been too busy counting the days until we move on to the next thing and then, I tell myself, I’ll really relax and settle in.

I say all this about buying houses and moving and always looking for the next best thing because I’ve started noticing a pattern in my life. I’m not just always ready to move into a better house on a prettier hillside, I’m always looking for something bigger and better in every part of my life. As soon as I get one thing that I thought I just had to have and knew would make me happy, there are five more things on the list of stuff I must have. I must have that outfit, that bag, that car, that job, that friend, that attention, that haircut, that vacation, and on and on it goes. It’s like I’m using all my life energy to dump water into a bucket riddled with holes; I fill and fill and fill and yet the bucket is always empty and I’m always thirsty for more.

I see too that way leads onto way, that is, when I finally get the bigger nicer house I wanted I must now fill it with bigger nicer possessions because the old stuff just won’t do. When I get a new dress, well I need new boots and a scarf and a bag to go with it because I just don’t have anything to wear otherwise. The more I get the more I want. Nothing satisfies. Nothing fulfills. I know this is true because I basically got everything I thought I could ever want for Christmas last year–and yet I already have a whole new list of stuff I want for Christmas this year–stuff I hadn’t even thought of needing until I got all that other stuff that now needs this and that to make it perfect. My heart is a greedy little monster and I will never give so much that it says, “Enough, there is nothing more I want. I am satisfied and content.” No, my heart will always say “give me more, give me now.”

C.S. Lewis said, “If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” There is a reason why all this stuff, however coveted, can never fully satisfy me; there is within me a void only God can fill.

There is nothing wrong with having nice things but nothing (not even everything) can ever fill me up and leave me happy–Hollywood is proof enough of that.

Someday Darren and I are going to find the right house or the right piece of land–but it isn’t going to make me happy. If I’m not happy right now today with God himself then I’ll never be happy tomorrow with God plus the perfect house. There is no room for God plus whatever–there is only room for God because God is the only “thing” that can fill the void within. I can be happy today or I can grasp for tomorrow–and tomorrow will come as empty and void as today.

Simplifying

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A bird sings quietly in the trees outside my house. The sky is a vain shade of cobalt blue and without a cloud or sigh of winter. I have all this technology at my fingertips—a computer with high-speed internet, an IPod filled with my favorite music and apps, a TV with my favorite shows, a camera to take pictures, Facebook to share my life with family and friends…and yet a bird’s song outdoes them all. No song on my IPod is as lovely as that bird’s song, no picture I take with my camera can compare to the blue sky beauty just outside my window, no interaction on Facebook or text can compare to an interaction with nature—a walk in the woods, a swim in the ocean, or a gaze at the stars. Technology clutters my life; nature feeds my soul.

Henry David Thoreau was wiser 150 years ago than we are today. “Men have become the tools of their tools” (Walden p. 33), he said–and he said so before all the technology of today. What have we become? Technology serves its purpose, of course; I could not share these thoughts with you in this way were it not for computers and internet. But too often I lose my way and let my interactions with technology replace my interactions with God, man, and nature. Thoreau said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Walden p. 74). What could I learn about God, myself, and the people around me if I were to wake up from the stupor of technology and live deliberately?

de•lib•er•ate (adv., de•lib’er•ate•ly)

v. 1.To consider carefully and at length. 2. To take counsel together so as to reach a decision. 3. To think about or consider carefully; weigh. adj. 1. Carefully thought out; intentional. 2. Slow and cautious in determining or deciding. 3. Leisurely in movement or manner; unhurried; slow.

Syn. 1. Deliberate, ponder, reflect, meditate, and muse mean to think deeply, usually in silence (As defined by the Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary).

How much more could I enjoy this quiet little life I’ve been given were I to step out of the bonds of technology and into the sanctuary of nature—if I were to deliberate, ponder, reflect, meditate, and even muse upon the stunning beauty of the world around me? Today I read for the first time William Cullen Bryant’s A Forest Hymn–it is stunning. I would love to share the whole poem but it’s rather long so I omitted lines here and there:

“The groves were God’s first temples. …

Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,

And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks

And supplication. …

Ah, why

Should we, in the world’s riper years, neglect God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,

Here, in the shallow of this aged wood,

Offer one hymn …

Father, thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns, thou

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down

Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,

Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,

And shot toward heaven.

…

till, at last, they stood,

As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,

Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold

Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,

These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride

Report not. No fantastic carving show

The boast of our vain race to change the form

Of thy fair works. But thou art here—thou fill’st

The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds

That run along the summit of these trees

In music; thou art in the cooler breath

That from the inmost darkness of the place

Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,

The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.

Here is continual worship;—Nature, here,

In the tranquility that thou dost love,

Enjoys the presence. Noiselessly

…

Thou hast not left

Thyself without a witness, in the shades,

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace

Are here to speak of thee.

…

My heart is awed within when I think

Of the great miracle that goes on,

In silence, round me—the perpetual work

Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed

Forever. Written on thy works I read

The lesson of thy own eternity.

…

let us [not] need the wrath

Of the mad unchained elements to teach

Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,

In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,

And to the beautiful order of thy works

Learn to conform the order of our lives.”

How stunning would it be to step away from our loud, busy worlds and see creation the way Bryant did? Get me to the woods.

Rest and Reflection

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I’m a very goal-oriented person. I’m a planner and a list-maker. I generally have a good idea of where I want to be in the next five years and what steps I need to take to arrive on time. In the areas where I am not as driven and organized, leave it to my husband to fill in the gaps. So you take two driven people who know what they want and you end up with constant motion and planning. We don’t slow down. Sometimes this is great–it’s great when you reach a goal and when you’re happy with where you are in life. But anything, however good, can be a problem if it’s taken too far. With constant motion, comes fatigue and burn out. Sometimes all the planning and counting, working and moving–all the good intentions to accomplish your best can destroy the beauty of where you already are and what you already have.

Sometimes, the most important thing you can do is to be still and be quiet.

Even though it’s hard for me to sit still, I’m learning that not always doing something is a very important part of everything I do. I’m learning to make time for down time and learning not to worry about what people will think even if they find out I purposely sleep in until like freaking lunch time one day a week. No alarm clock. No making a list of all the things I have to do that day. Just sleep until I wake up rested. And guess what? I usually get more done on those days anyway because I am rested.

I still sometimes feel guilty–even when I’m sitting here tapping out my thoughts, I feel like I should be doing something else, something more productive than babbling on the internet. But charting your thoughts and stirring thoughts in others isn’t such a waste of time, is it? And here I am again, justifying my lack of motion as if every moment of stillness need be weighed and accounted for. If you must find justification for every moment of stillness, just ask God, he will back you up.

When God was tired, he didn’t just take a nap, he took a retreat–forty days alone in the wilderness for prayer, rest, and reflection. He didn’t just suggest the Sabbath as a good idea but actually made it one of the Ten Commandments–he only chose ten and rest was one of them.

After spending the first couple years of our marriage working full-time and never seeing each other because of schedule differences, my husband and I both quit our jobs and started over. We had to take a pay cut which meant cutting other things out too and it was scary at first, but you know what? It worked out and we made it and I’ve never been happier. Getting to slow down and spend time with my husband was worth the chance we took. Now, as we plan (of course, we have to have a plan!) for the future, our goals are not so centered on advancing our careers or making heaps of money as they are on building a quiet, peaceful life together. We want to live in the country on a big farm where we can raise a family and build a slow, meaningful life together. We want to take our time and enjoy our days and get our rest–even if that means taking a pay cut or doing without a thing or two here and there–we learned early, the hard way, that a paycheck can never pay for time together.

As I was mulling over all these ideas, I came across this blog post that was Freshly Pressed here on WordPress. The author beautifully summed up my own thoughts before I could do it myself; I hope you will read her words.

Running in Circles

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Do you ever wonder what the point of  life is? You get up every day and go to work, come home and eat dinner, hang out for a few minutes before bed, and then do it all over again the next day. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. There are many things that I would like to accomplish, things that I feel might matter in the long-run, but then there’s the pesky problem of working 8 to 5, buying groceries and cooking dinners, doing laundry, paying bills, and on and on the list goes of the things we must do to survive but find no real satisfaction or meaning in. I am struck by how both busy and how empty life can be.

Sometimes I think the emptier we are, the more we do. We try to feel inner voids with outer activity. If you keep your hands busy, you won’t give your mind time to figure out how unhappy you are. So we work, and play, and run and run in vast circles of nothingness.

The other night my husband and I sat up late talking and I asked him if he was happy with life. His answer, bitingly honest, was yes sort of, but what’s the point? Yes, we’re happy in our marriage and we’re thankful for many things but what are we actually accomplishing? Our lives our filled with necessary obligations–work and church and a million other things–but when we get to the end of it all, if our lives were over tomorrow, what would we have accomplished? What would have mattered?

Apart from necessities, I can think of only two things that I would carry to the grave with meaning–love and relationships. My love for Darren matters–if I lost him tomorrow, every minute up until that moment would have mattered and always will matter to me. Love is my most meaningful “accomplishment.”  My relationships with God and other people–friends and family–matter too. All the rest is just necessity–we work to eat and eat to live–and live to love.

I think in order to fill our lives with meaning, we must first stop filling them with mindless activities. Ever since our conversation that night, my husband and I have been asking ourselves what we can eliminate in order to slow life down and to spend more time together. This is not an easy task because it means saying no to many people and many things and this sometimes gives people the impression that you’re not interested in being a part of what’s going on. Whatever people may think though, my goal is simple–build relationships, be quiet enough to hear the people in my life speaking their hearts and minds to me, sit still and take in the world around me–nature and all God has given us to enjoy and better know him. Slow down, sit and eat dinner and sip a cup of coffee and stop always hurrying mindlessly from pointless point A to pointless point B. If I am too busy to know God, know people, and know love, them I’m too busy. Whatever else I may accomplish, in the end I accomplish nothing if not love for God and people.