Keep it simple

For going on three years now, or so my counting tells me, I've had the good fortune to offer an introductory paragraph for the Stamp Your Heart Out e-newsletter (at the link, you can sign up to receive the newsletter).  Yesterday, the word (as in, Word of the Week) had been speaking to me emphatically, relative to so many situations.  Here is a copy.

Word of the Week:  SIMPLICITY

Our word today even has its own tune, "Simple Gifts," performed here

in a suitably embellishment-free way.  It originated as a Shaker song and celebrated simplicity, something which seems to be less generally appealing that it once was.  Unadorned, uncomplicated, easy, simple.  We can make choices that keep us from getting tangled in the knots of over-doing, over-being, over-wanting, over-having.  Depending on the season, I have become, for simplicity, a tee shirt, sweatshirt, sweater person.  Solid colors, plain, easy.  Oh, I won't pretend that I am not drawn with lust in my heart to a set of pink, hand-painted, flowered china.  One can still daydream.  Beauty is determined on a case-by-case basis.  But as a plan for living, simplicity helps me stay on my feet and in my, mostly, right mind.  We drift from what is simple when we argue, when we feel a need to be right, when we - ugh - feel a need to correct someone for something that really doesn't matter.  An awful lot of stuff doesn't matter.  As a mantra, "Keep it simple" has much to offer.  It gives us back time, energy, enthusiasm, joy.  Complicated is an unnatural state, no wonder most of us feel so tired.  P.S.  I have always loved the song.