My wife Lisa and I have been pet sitting for our daughter and son-in-law for about a week. One cat, Mama, is an angel, while their other cat, PeePee, hates me with a passion. She frequently greets me with a hiss and a swipe of her claws. Their older dog Otis is a little Maltipoo. He can be a drama king, but he’s a lovable charmer and fairly easy to care for.
And then there’s Leonard. At six months old and nearly sixty pounds, this Bernedoodle is a handful. Imagine a giant toddler with fangs who’s strong enough to bowl you over.
Leonard’s paw-to-hand ratio
Don’t get me wrong. I love Leonard. He’s goofy and fluffy and affectionate and playful and smart. He’s going to be an amazing adult dog. But right now he’s a puppy with no concept of his size and strength and a maw like a Great White. He needs almost constant attention to keep him from inadvertently destroying the house, himself, or us.
I love and thrive in routine. I get up, do my stretches and workout, make my tea and have my quiet time of meditation, reflection, and prayer. Lisa and I take our walk, then we dive into our work for the morning until 1:00 pm when we break for lunch and a few hours of creativity-replenishing reality TV. We round out the day with a late afternoon into early evening work session before going to bed early to read and play on our computers.
Leonard is having none of it. He has his own schedule, thank you very much. But I can be stubborn and obtuse, so I’ve been trying to make Leonard work with my routine. I know that sounds idiotic, but when in the midst of a storm, sometimes my vision is cloudy.
Leonard is a force of nature, unyielding, with aspects beyond my control. My attempts to live my normal routine with him in the mix has only led to mounting frustration. Something has to change, and at this stage of his life, it isn’t going to be Leonard.
So Lisa and I have created a new routine that works with Leonard instead of fighting against him—shifting my quiet time, our lunch schedule, our TV watching. Splitting up watch duties instead of both of us being “on” during all his waking hours. Trying to become fluid like water vs fixed like stone.
We’re in the midst of the change now, and the early results are promising. I’m already more relaxed, less stressed, and getting more done.
When life hands you a challenge you can’t avoid, adapt. Change your schedule, routine, and expectations to work with the new element vs against it. Shift your rigidity. Be fluid like water, not fixed like stone. If you do, you’ll find renewed peace and productivity, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
When it comes to personal growth, Simplicity is beautiful, necessary, and eventually toxic.
I recently read this perspective on Simplicity:
Just as all higher mathematics depends on learning basic arithmetic, and just as all more sophisticated music depends on mastering the basics of tempo, melody, and harmony, the spiritual life depends on learning well the essential lessons of this first season, Simplicity. If these lessons aren’t learned well, practitioners will struggle in later seasons. But if in due time this season doesn’t give way to the next, the spiritual life can grow stagnant and even toxic.
Nearly all of us in this dynamic season of Simplicity tend to share a number of characteristics. We see the world in simple dualist terms: we are the good guys who follow the good authority figures and we have the right answers; they are the bad guys who consciously or unconsciously fight on the wrong side of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. We feel a deep sense of identity and belonging in our in-group…. This simple, dualist faith gives us great confidence.
This confidence, of course, has a danger, as the old Bob Dylan classic “With God on Our Side” makes clear: “You don’t count the dead when God’s on your side.” [1] The same sense of identification with an in-group that generates a warm glow of belonging and motivates sacrificial action for us can sour into intolerance, hatred, and even violence toward them. And the same easy, black-and-white answers that comfort and reassure us now may later seem arrogant, naive, ignorant, and harmful, if we don’t move beyond Simplicity in the fullness of time.
Brian McLaren, Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words
I resonate with this idea that the season of Simplicity is important and necessary, but if we don’t move beyond it, it becomes harmful. It’s like refusing to stop using training wheels or not changing shoes when we grow out of them. I see it in people who isolate themselves in echo chambers, only listening to and believing those who agree with them, seeing ideas or information that challenge their established opinions as harmful, wrong, or even evil.
I understand the appeal. Reevaluating long held beliefs and positions is hard work and requires sometimes painful growth. It’s far easier to entrench ourselves, put our heads down, and assign malign motives to those on the other side of the spiritual / political / social / racial divide. I’ve done that more times than I like to admit.
While attractive, it’s not a recipe for a healthy, vibrant life or society. If we are serious about personal development, we MUST allow ourselves to be challenged, to reevaluate our deeply held positions (you can read about my spiritual reconstruction journey beginning withthis post). It takes effort and intentionality, but the freedom and joy gained is more than worth the price.
So how about you? Do you need to grow from Simplicity to Complexity? Listen to those who hold different viewpoints. Read other perspectives. Talk with a variety of people. Ask sincere questions and really listen. Consider honestly what you’ve heard. If you do, you’ll feel the vibrancy of growth, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
This post was originally published November 11, 2023.
[1] Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side,” The Times They Are A-Changin’ (New York: Columbia, 1964).
Brian D. McLaren, Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 29, 30.
At 6’ 2” and 250 lbs with silver hair and a full gray beard, Bill was a gentle soul in an imposing body. After the church I was doing music for imploded resulting in both pastors leaving, he had been brought in on an interim basis as a calming presence to steady the ship. Being in his sixties, Bill quickly became a mentor figure to me, as my twenty-something self was reeling from the turmoil.
We were discussing how he was handling his possessions during his upcoming house move when he said the line that baffled me:
“You get to a point where you ask yourself if you own your stuff or your stuff owns you?”
I kept my face neutral and nodded politely, but I held an opposing view—I like my stuff. I want more stuff.
Over the next twenty years, I got a lot of stuff. A big house in a gated community with mountain views. A library with custom shelves and wingback leather chairs. An upright video game console packed with arcade classics. Autographed posters from my favorite movies. The latest technology big screen TV. A baby grand piano. A backyard with a pool, hot tub, basketball court, and fire pit. Nice cars. It was fun.
For awhile.
Then my two kids got older, got busier, and went off to college. My wife was deep into her writing career. I noticed myself using our stuff less, enjoying our stuff less, even noticing our stuff less. It seemed like a lot. A lot of space. A lot of maintenance. A lot of expense. A lot of headache. It all began to feel heavy, like an invisible weight on my shoulders.
Then my wife and I watched a documentary called The Minimalists. It followed two guys who traveled the US talking about the merits of minimalism, a way of life that embraces having few physical possessions. They described the peace and freedom that resulted from the increased time and money that came from having less stuff.
Given my internal landscape at the time, it struck a chord. The lightness they spoke of made me jealous. So with a yellow legal pad in hand, I went through our entire house, noting every room, closet, cabinet, drawer, under-bed space, and flat surface holding a pile of something.
The pages filled quickly. I was astonished by the sheer volume of items we possessed. It was gobsmacking. The thought of doing something about it left me completely overwhelmed. I almost threw the list in a drawer and plunged my head back in the sand.
But I didn’t. I started with something easy, a small closet. I emptied it and sorted things into four piles: keep, sell, donate, trash. When the sell / donate / trash items were removed and the keep items were neatly returned to the closet, I was surprisingly happy. I felt a little bit of that invisible weight fall from my shoulders.
That first tiny success gave me the motivation to tackle a kitchen drawer. Then a cabinet. Then our office area. I gathered momentum and decluttered a room, then the small garage, followed by the big one. It took me a year and half to get through my list. You can imagine my satisfaction at scratching the last item off the legal pad.
A year later, we decided to move to Sacramento to live near our son. Instead of buying a house, we rented an apartment in a walkable area. We took everything we needed and really wanted for our new, far smaller place, then hired an auction company to sell everything else in a single day, including both cars.
The sense of lightness and freedom was palpable. We loved our simpler, uncluttered, low-maintenance lifestyle. After three years, we moved back to Arizona and bought a 1054 square foot condo with one closet, pairing down even more.
Recently, we took another huge step on our minimalist journey and became nomads. We sold the condo, both our rental houses, and nearly all our possessions. Now everything we own fits in our daughter’s guest room closet and the back of our 2007 two-door Pontiac G6. We live in hotels, AirBnbs, and with friends and family, currently in the US, but we’ll soon be heading abroad.
We’re two months into this digital nomad journey, and the freedom is almost paralyzing. There are down sides—not having a place organized just for our comfort and tastes, the hassle of packing and unpacking, and transition days traveling from place to place are tedious. But the upsides are fantastic—a sense of lightness and adventure, seeing new places and meeting new people, visiting loved ones, having memorable experiences, no maintenance, little cleaning, low fixed expenses, and the flexibility to come and go as we desire. It’s marvelous.
Our love-affair with digital nomad life may come to an end, and if so, we’re good with that. We can always decide we’re done with the road and have a fixed address again. But for now, we’re enjoying this wonderful ride, one made possible by changing our perspective on stuff all those years ago.
Stuff is not bad. Stuff can be great. But excess stuff is not necessary for happiness. Some of the happiest people I’ve met have the least amount of stuff.
Is your stuff comprised of items that you truly want, need, and as organizing guru Marie Kondo says “sparks joy” in you? (We’ve discovered the number of items we need is actually quite small) Or is it a collection of things society and clever advertising say are “must haves”? Do your possessions really make you as happy as you thought they would? Or have they become slightly uncomfortable reminders of unmet expectations that you have to buy, store, clean, maintain, and insure?
Watch The Minimalists documentary on Netflix. Watch The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaners on Peacock (hilariously hosted by comedian Amy Poehler). Read articles by Marie Kondo (or stream her multiple shows on Netflix). Then pick a drawer or a closet or a tabletop to declutter. See how you feel letting things go. If you do, you’ll be on your way to more lightness and freedom, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
