I have to say how impressed I am with Omar Itani writing style and opinions about various topics I have found. The word ‘Simplifying’ first caught my attention on my radio program “LifeTalk with Mariette” and a guest, a Financial Planner spoke on “How to save money while spending it”…going back to the basics. How we spend our earned dollars, how we shop, etc.

“I had learned over time, it is not how much money you make, it is about how much you keep”. – Mariette Kammerer

Sharing this article with you today is taking matters to an entirely new level:

https://www.omaritani.com/blog/peace-and-simplicity-vs-multiplicity

A few days ago I spent the afternoon relaxing by the beach.

It was a real joy to let time fill its sails with wind and flow right past me. It was a joy to let the saltwater kiss the bare souls of my feet as I crouched across the stretch of sand to pick up some seashells–tritons, tellins, cowries, and conches in the many shades of peach, plum, and pink.

But an hour later, I found myself staring at a fast-sinking sun, weighed heavy by a load of shells in my pocket. And much like the waves in front of me that constantly ebbed and flowed, a contemplative thought arose in my mind: How often do we spend the hours of our days exerting needless energy to collect more memories, more moments, more things, and then drain ourselves as we continue to hold onto them?

Do you really need to add another item to the plethora of clothes in your closet? Do you really need to launch another side project or should you just double down on the one that you’ve been tweaking and procrastinating on for years?

Do you really need to take on more responsibility at your job because everyone around you seems to be doing it? Do you really need to connect with more people or have you considered connecting more deeply with the people you already know?

Do I really need all these shells in my hand? Or can I choose three as free gifts from the shore and send the rest back to sea?

In the Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu writes:

“Excessive fortune brings about its own misfortune.

Too much light blinds the eye; too much noise deafens the ear; too many spices dull the taste; too much exercise weakens the body; the pursuit of great riches leads to ruin.”

The pursuit of great riches leads to ruin and the pursuit of more leads to less—less physical, mental, and emotional energy and certainly less inner wealth.

In other words, too much of something is never too good. It tips the scale toward stress and so we naturally fall off balance as we get bogged down by the needless weight we are now burdened to carry.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the recent years, it’s that in a fast-moving world, there’s nothing more invigorating to the mind and body than living slow. And in an increasingly complex world, there’s nothing more calming to the soul than simplifying your small space within it.

The Art of Simple Living First Begins With Shedding

There’s a quote by Sir Isaac Newton that reads:

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”

Isn’t that an eloquent expression of life itself? A life of simplicity is what all great thinkers and philosophers have always preached, and yet, until today, a life of multiplicity is what we chase. More social outings. More holidays and travel. More ideas to pursue. More books to read. More products to buy. More people to meet and more time to steal from ourselves and give to others.

We now live in an era where we are so easily tempted to consume more than we are called to create. And that’s a serious problem since fulfilment is nourished by creation, not consumption.

But what is multiplicity?

A life of multiplicity is one defined by endless distraction. It manifests when we make it a habit to seek more of what we don’t have rather than fully indulging in what we do. What happens then? We end up doing too many fragmented and conflicting things, and thus, spread ourselves too thin.

And why do we do this? Because deep we don’t really know what we want, so we go about life drifting through it, instead of intentionally rowing our own boat. We go about life coasting, instead of leveraging the wind to sail with it. We follow the pace that’s set for us, instead of carving out our own strides forward.

We scatter the energy of our bodies doing work that doesn’t nourish our soul. We scatter our emotional energy pleasing people whose values don’t even align with our own. And we scatter our mental energy complicating our problems by feeding them too much complex thought.

As a result, we fragment our energy upon needless happenings instead of unifying it toward an intentional, self-directed destination.

No wonder over 80% of the working force in the US and in the UK is constantly feeling overwhelmed and stressed.

In her book, Gift From The Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes that “one learns first of all in beach living the art of shedding; how little one can get along with, not how much.”

The art of a simple life begins with shedding.

Shedding your outgrown clothes and all needless material possessions. Shedding your burdens and all the emotional baggage that no longer serve you. Shedding the circles of friends who drain you. Shedding your ego, pride, vanity, masks, and shells. Shedding the irrational need to be constantly doing something in order to fill the meagre gaps between space and time.

The way I see it, shedding is less a process of removal than it is a process of renewal. It is less a process of letting go than it is a process of pealing the layers to arrive at your truest authentic self. How else can you arrive at your own inner essence if you don’t shave off the things that consume your attention and thus distract you from your innermost purpose?

It is a fact that, as humans, we shed our entire outer layer of skin every 2-4 weeks at the rate of 0.001–0.003 ounces of skin flakes an hour. So over the course of a lifetime, we shed our skin almost a thousand times.

But while skin shedding is a natural process, the question that you should be constantly asking yourself is: “What am I consciously shedding today?”

How are you simplifying your life?

How are you paving the way for inner peace to blossom?