Today, many of us often feel overwhelmed by the complexities of our lives. There’s so much we have to accomplish and so little time for all our responsibilities that our duties can begin to feel like burdens. We’re lost without our day planners and scheduled – no, overscheduled – for months into the future.
Is it that our lives are too complex? Or, as Bergson suggests, are we just looking at it from the wrong point of view?
Playwright and author Oscar Wilde wrote, “Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”
“The simple thing” – what a comforting phrase in this age of e-mail, voice mail, cell phones, pagers and hand-held computers.
In today’s world, technology enables us to recreate our offices anywhere at any time. This work mobility provides us limitless accessibility. We can now perform our multitude of tasks faster, more efficiently, more economically, more frequently, more and more and more …
We’re living in an electronic whirl. The faster we do things, the more things there are to do and the sooner they need to be completed.
Maybe it’s time for us to remember Wilde’s words that life need not be so complex.
We all need to occasionally stop and listen to that voice inside our heads instead of the rings and beeps of all those electronic gadgets.
Some may think this is a call to banish modern technology from our lives and return to a slower-paced time of gaslights and horse-drawn carriages.
It’s not. Life moves forward. The world advances and we must advance with it.
Today’s technology can and does make our lives easier. But it is important to realize that sometimes we can become a little too “wired.” There are times when our lives become too hectic and too hurried.
It’s at these times we need to “unplug.” One way to do that is to apply a more personal touch.
Whether that means taking a few minutes to tell an employee, “thank you” for a good job, writing a note of support to a friend or business associate, helping your child with his homework or taking an hour of peace and quiet for yourself, the simple thing can indeed be exactly what’s needed.
There’s a Persian proverb that says: “The world is a rose; smell it and pass it to your friend.”
What could be simpler?
Denise Lloyd
Publisher
