Life Is Simple

Life Is Simple


Life is simple.

You're born, you eat, you sleep, you grow into what looks more or less like a human being, and eventually you die.

I can't say that it's a quick gig or that it's a long journey through the years. It's a just parcel of time that finds you bobbing and weaving your way through all kinds of situations, some enriching, some pleasurable, some enlightening, and in other moments, some demeaning, some painful, some confusing.

Sometimes you get what you want, and other times you get what you really didn't want.

Sometimes, when people ask, you say that you are happy, and other times, people know better than to ask, because they realise you've never been unhappier.

Sometimes you fall in love, and other times, you swear you'll never fall in love again.

There is no real rhyme or reason to the way things start or the way things turn out. You takes your chances, roll the dice, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

There are no guarantees that what is true today is what will be true tomorrow. Life simply has no warranty that promises to make things right when the frazzle valve in the engine driving your experience unexpectedly conks out. If you need a new frazzle valve, you have to find one somewhere, somehow. You're more or less on your own, baby.

And still, life is simple.

Except we complicate it because, for whatever reason, we hate simplicity. So we overthink the obvious.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we should aspire to the life of a goldfish, whose singular problem seems to be that it bumps its nose against the sides of its glass bowl. Obviously, we were born for more than a recurring bruised nose. And yet, each of us is similar to the goldfish in trying to stick one's nose where it doesn't belong.

What the goldfish doesn't get is that, beyond the glass, is an instantaneous death.

What we don't get is that, beyond our simple lives, is a world of confusion and hurt.

When you go looking for a full life outside of yourself, when the key to happiness depends on someone else, you are likely to be disappointed when that other person fails to meet your expectations of him or her. Like the poor goldfish, you bump and bump your way through all kinds of relationships, and instead of suffering from that recurring bruised nose, you suffer from a seemingly incurable bruised ego.

No, like life, happiness is simple. Strip off all the cares and woes of the people you know, free yourself from all their expectations of you and all your real or imagined obligations to them, and you will likely find that you are happy, or at least, happy enough.

When all is said and done, only you have the power to be happy. Someone else can't give it to you. Someone else can't complete you as a human being, and you can't complete another person as a human being. Thinking otherwise is a sure sign that you suffer from megalomania and have gone completely insane.

Now, you're going to say that one can't live in isolation and expect to be happy. You're right. We are communal entities. We like to have other people around — friends, lovers, family, and the like. I'd be the last to suggest that you close your door and hide in the catacombs of yourself. Nope, swing that door wide open, and let whoever you want in. Just remember that they are present in your life because you want them there, and since it was your choice to let them in, it can also be your choice to ask them to leave. Should they decide to leave on their own account, then it's equally important to let them go as well.

The life you control is your own, no one else's.

Simple, see?