In terms of the materiality in the world and the way that technology is functioning today, there’s so much available to us that was never available before. What I once could count on the fingers of my hand are now thousands of things of which I could get involved. So much so, the choices are overwhelming. Since we can’t choose it all, how do we choose?
We just choose according to the values that governour life. That’s the best way. Those values are on track with our loving, our caring, our compassion, our grace, and our ease. You might say, “How could anybody be graceful and at ease with the phone ringing and the beeper going off , and then there’s ten messages I haven’t answered, and I’ve got a hundred e-mails to return? How do I do all those things? I can’t keep up with it all, and it’s getting more and more all the time!”
Keep the principles that govern your life steady, and those principles will take care of you. They’ll govern it all for you. Let go and let God and do what’s in front of you. And do the best you can with it. That’s all you can really do. And if you find something gets beyond you, then good riddance! Realize it’s okay if you couldn’t handle something. Whatever that was, just move on to what’s next for you.
There’s a tremendous opportunity with all the complexity in our lives to learn simplicity, to discover about the simple things in life. The sunset, the one that governed Abraham, Moses and Jesus, is still the same sun, isn’t it? The sun that they were looking at, we get to look at too. What a beautiful and magnificent truth! I don’t want to forget or lose track of that truth because to me, that’s a much richer, more profound aspect about life in this world than any of the latest technological inventions.
The basic things in our lives really haven’t changed that much. But we can get stressed out and allow things to disturb our peace and tranquility. It wasn’t so long ago that what disturbed people’s tranquility were things like lions and bears and floods. So you can see, there’s always been something stressful for us to handle.
The guiding principles for us are about who we are in our lives. Those are eternal guiding principles— that our sanctuary is in our loving nature, our abiding nature, and that God is the one who gives us peace. God is the one who wakes us and gives us rest. That hasn’t changed. So sometimes it’s good to do a little time-out with ourselves. Say, “Wait a minute. You know, I’ve allowed myself to get caught up in things that I can’t keep up with. Nobody can keep up with those things. So why am I attempting to keep up? I’m just going to let them go.”
I don’t have the formula that says, “Here’s what you’ve got to do to simplify your life.” But, I have things that I know will help: Take care of yourself. Accept yourself. Don’t try to rush. Don’t have a sense of urgency. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. And don’t judge yourself for things that you don’t expect or want to happen. In so doing, you’ll get along fine with yourself while you’re in this world.
Baruch Bashan
