Your reading this. You chose to read this. Making that choice wasn’t that complicated. Part of my life pursuit is living simply. When you live simply, you don’t have to make that many decisions. And vice versa, when life gets more complicated, you have to make many more decisions. I only drink water as a beverage. No coffee, no juice, no tea, no alcohol. just water. How did I do that?? Simple. I just chose to do it. I eat a vegan diet. How is that even possible?? It all came down to making a single choice. There’s other things I could list but I think you get the point. Our lives get complicated when we’re not intentional about living simply. Do you experience alot of moments of being undecided?? There’s something powerful about being intentional. Our intentions are our goal and focus. There has to be a target to aim for. Imagine shooting a crossbow without having any specific target in mind. The focus of a shooter that has no intended target is much different than a shooter who’s aiming for a bull’s eye mark. One definition for concentration is: treated to remove or reduce an inessential ingredient. There’s no second guessing. There’s no wavering. This is the mindset of living simply. It’s the removal of inessentials. It’s not just the removal of tangible things, but of intangible things. It is the removal of thinking a certain way or thinking certain thoughts. It is the intentional removal of certain decisions. When I decide I’m not going to even entertain the thought of making certain choices; I’m removing that choice from my mind. I’ve made the choice to do that. We all can do this. You don’t have to be an ultramarathoner or qualify for the next summer Olympics. We all can start somewhere, but the worst thing to do is never deciding and just drifting through out life. It all starts from making a small choice. I could be undecided about lunch. That small seed of being undecided can grow into a tree of indecision. I could live my whole life of not truly knowing of how I want to live my life. Do I know myself well enough?? Do I know all the different kinds of food I like or don’t like. Do I know that I like abstract impressionism art or bebop piano jazz music or eating exotic fruits or that I hate pizza and any kind of fast food. Do I know what kind of work I want to do as a profession?? Am I too distracted and undecided to even answer the question?? There’s some questions that don’t have any answers, but there’s some questions that must be answered and knowing who you are is definitely one of those that has to be answered. Living simply is a choice. We humans have a tendency to complicate things. We like to not take responsibility for things because its the easy way. The easy way is the highway to mediocrity. Are you happy with your life?? Look at the choices you’ve made. Even when you make good choices, life will never be perfect. You may not have done anything wrong, yet life will throw you a curveball straight between the eyes. These moments are a good reality check. These uncomfortable pauses force us to stop and contemplate of what really matters. If nothing bad ever happened, how would you be able to define what good is?? If you’ve never experienced things that have no substance, how would you know what does have substance?? We’re human beings. We’ll never be perfect, but that shouldn’t ever stop us from ever making a choice. The reason our world is the way it is is because of people’s decisions. If there’s ever going to be a change in your own life, it comes down to the decisions you make. Life is too short to live an inessential life. Make a choice.