The natural cure for youth is aging, and the proof of aging is simplicity. Youth is more, more, more; maturity is less, less, less.
I wear blue jeans and black t-shirts six days a week, because it’s simple. I have two belts: one for work, one for dress up…and one of them could pass for new.
I have one credit card. Just because.
I wear a cap most days. It keeps sawdust out of my hair and hides my bald spot.
I pray most every morning. I miss a day or two, but it’s an improvement on all those years when He and I weren’t on speaking terms. One of us had to be Big and for a miserable stretch I was under the illusion that it was me. Life got simpler when I figured out what size my britches were.
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It’s a lesson that ain’t-all-learned, but it’s some-learned… to just shut the heck up and let the emotions fizzle out before I crack open a 55 gallon drum of verbal whup-ass. I once tried to herd some geese – trust me, that’s a one time thing – but trying to herd a bunch of words you wish you hadn’t said, I don’t know what you call that…but it ain’t simple…
For a chunk of my life I only took my mind seriously; now I pay attention when my appetite drops, when my sleep ain’t right, when I shake the hand of someone and want to pull it back quick. It’s simpler to heed the gauge – even when you don’t know what the gauge is telling you – than to ignore it and get on into trouble, and have it all come clear in the 20/20 of wish-it-hadn’t-been.
Took me a while to realize just how unimportant I was. At first that’s a colossal disappointment, but once you settle on in to the concept it’s pretty damn freeing. Living up to a projected image of myself was a waste of time, period, but even dumber when I realized that I was barely getting a glance from the other knuckleheads, because they were so busy tending their own house of mirrors…
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Life is a lot easier when you can simplify things into two categories. Is this good, or bad? Is this fun, or not? Is this right, or wrong? Is this true, or a lie? Is this a Me thing or a We thing?
Committees don’t simplify. Give my chair to somebody younger. I’ll miss the doughnuts but I like how my coffee tastes at home.
We’re given our lives and most of us flounder around trying to find our place. It’s round holes, square pegs, and come to find out, it didn’t have to be that hard. Start with you: ask yourself what you’re good at, and then go be it. It’s that simple. There is always room in this world for us to be us.
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It’s simpler to say No than regret a lukewarm yes.
It’s less about pretty or handsome, replaced with simple, humble respect for health.
What good comes from being all things to all people, except yourself?
Point A to Point B is a good way to look at a map…and a good way to look at anything. As-the-crow-flies is a saying, but it’s a goal too, and saves wear on the tires, and the emotions.
It’s simpler to be alone, than to be alone in a crowd.
Call me simple, but I prefer making do, over making debt.
Counting to a thousand takes a lot longer than counting to a hundred, but it rates for minor inconvenience if it saves you getting crossways with another person…
…but once you figure out that you didn’t count long enough, it’s so much simpler to just admit you were an ass in the moment and do whatcha gotta do to get out of the ditch…
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Life gets all kinds of simple when you realize that you’re only gonna appeal to a few slices of the pie. The very ones that don’t get you have something in common with you; you don’t get them either.
Simple is to simple what faith is to children. It just is.
Expectations are the enemy of simplicity. It’s the difference between What Is and What Should Be, except What Is came by itself honestly…and What Should Be is often something that should never be…
(Ooh. That was a good one.) (I love when that stuff happens…I’m gonna pop this baby into Park and call it done…leaving me with one simple task, follow my own advice…)
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where the creativity is abundant, and simplicity is always welcome.
Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories can be found on Eighty-one’s Facebook page. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”
__ Henry David Thoreau
“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.”
__ Bruce Lee
“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.”
__ Isaac Newton
“I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.”
__ Albert Einstein
“Life got simpler when I figured out what size my britches were.”
__ Me, just me
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