Simplify, Simplify…

“Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.”
–Henry David Thoreau

A big low-pressure system seems to have moved in to affect my entire household. First a major-ugly basement flood. Then a major-ugly laptop crash. Husband sick, off and on with very bizarre stomach flu that affects him only in the morning. Daughter deciding where to go to college (it’s looking like it’s going to be far away from home). Me feeling bummed and stuck. Caught between my attachments to way things were and my vision for how I want to my life to look and feel, now.

Morning sickness, life changes, transition…Hmm, looks like all the stages of birth.

In my last post, Being with Loss, I explored this question: How do we hang out with the fact that things don’t always add up, make sense, or work out?

I don’t have any big sweeping revelations, since I’m still living it. Living the question, I mean. But I have found strength and comfort in the wisdom of others.

Here’s a sampling; few words that speak volumes about our human experience, and mitigate some of the unpleasant side-effects of a grasping mind. I love how they cut right to the chase:

• “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”–Wayne Dyer

• “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”–JK Rowling’s Commencement Address at Harvard, June 2008

• “Ignore your critics.”–Seth Godin [for me this includes the worst one: the inner-critic]

• “Hot and Cold, Pain and Pleasure, Come and go. Come and go. Oh my Dear One Manage to endure them.”–Bhagavad Gita

• “Our resistance to change is likely to reach its peak when significant change is eminent.”–George Leonard

• “Yo no soy yo. Por lo menos no soy el mismo yo en el interior.”–Ernesto Che Guevara

• “Pain happens; suffering is optional.”–Alberto Villoldo

• “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.” –Anaïs Nin

• “Life turns on a dime, you can stop for a doughnut and end up living in another country.” –Claudia Shear, Blown Sideways Through Life

• The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” –Albert Einstein

• “Why do I put this ‘have-to-do-it’ burden on myself? It only makes me righteous, artificially safe, and soul-tired.”–Gunilla Norris, Being Home

• “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”–Mark Twain

• “If you want there to be peace—anything from peace of mind to peace on earth—here is the condensed instruction: Stay with the initial tightening and don’t spin off. Keep it simple.”–Pema Chödrön

Are there any quotations that touch and enliven you? Words of wisdom that you or someone else has written that invites us to slow down, simplify and/or reconnect with our true – spacious –selves?

Feel free to share your favorites in the comment box below.

Photo: Thoreau’s Walden by Stephanie Bennett Vogt