Complications

What a tangled web we live in! Dependent on so many little things for my life to run smoothly, I skip along blithely until one of those little things goes wrong, when my life screeches to a halt. This morning, I had narrow escape. Dropping my son off at nursery, there was a problem – a gas leak! The hall stank of gas and, although the gas man had been called, he would be at least another half an hour, with no guarantee (of course) that it would be simple to fix. Fortunately for me, the weather is OK today, so the children could play outside while the staff waited for the gas man. Even if the problem was serious, they could drive the children to one of the other nurseries for the day, so my work wasn’t threatened (and a good thing, too, with the deadlines I’ve got today!).

But it made me think about the web of dependencies I live in, the complexity of my life. I don’t think I’m particularly unusual in this – we all, I am sure, develop a complex network of meshing obligations and responsibilities. Work, family, friends; deadlines, appointments, plans. And this is partly what makes life good. We fill our lives with good things as well as needful things: evenings with friends as well as days at work; trips to the zoo as well as days at nursery; companionable hours in front of the TV as well as family shopping trips. It’s also partly what makes life difficult. The continual press of Things To Do can become oppressive; the permanent awareness of Jobs Needing Attention dulls our enjoyment of time spent relaxing. At its worst, I find that the list of things that Should Be Done seems so large that I just avoid doing any of them!
It’s not even a matter of “slimming down”, really, it seems to me – that is a negative reaction (“How can I cut things out of my life?”). The issue is, I think, can we grasp Simplicity in the midst of complexity? To live in among all the things that we need to do, while keeping our priorities in order – so that we can do the really important things without guilt.
Simplicity is about focus, attention and peace. Knowing what is important and paying attention to that before anything else. Making time for people who need it, and leaving to one side the clamour that says “I need fixing”, “I need cleaning”, “I need mowing”. Because, at my best, when I’ve managed something approaching this, the lesser things somehow get their share of attention as well.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 11:31am on 15 September 2004
Category: Life, Struggling, General