We tend to understand our lives as having ever-increasing level of complexity. Nearly instantaneous access to information from anywhere in the world at almost anytime shapes, and shatters, our thoughts and feelings. We connect with ever-growing networks of people who live in distant places; more and more diverse perspectives influence our own. We live in a world where there are always new things to discover, new ideas to explore, new experiences to try, new challenges to meet, new skills to master. We are immersed in a swirling vortex of options and choices.
In the midst of this overwhelming complexity, there are moments which show me that what is essential does not change. Sometimes life is simple.
I have felt it as I held the hands of people struggling with pain and loneliness and fear. I have heard it, in the silence of sitting with a person I truly know and love. Sometimes I can taste it in a carefully brewed craft beer. I have seen it in the eyes of some of the monks I know. I have even found it as I connected to some of those people I only know electronically. I have come to depend on it as I have worked my way, step by painful step, closer to my own truest self. Sometimes life is simple.
The deeper truth is that life is always complex and always simple, which is what make it so very challenging, and so very beautiful. We may experience the complexity and the simplicity at different times, because of how we pay attention to them, but they are always there.
The people with whom I work as a leadership coach often feel overwhelmed by the decisions they need to make, the challenges before them, and the ways they perceive their own effectiveness in dealing with those complexities. We work together to recognize the simplicity, and move forward.
What are the complexities that threaten to overwhelm you? Where do you find simplicity?
[Image by ghedo ]
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