The valuing of busyness comes from many sources. They exist all around us in the reminders that it is important to seek success, and that what is outer is more important than what is inner. Nothing could be further from the truth ? a truth that those who are close to the land and those who have been intimate with the ways of Nature have observed for centuries, namely, that there is an order to all things and we are most in harmony with ourselves and with life when we participate in that Divine order. This is an order that the plants know and that the birds know. It is an order that defines the rhythm of life.



Many have a fear of becoming simple ? of letting go of the complexity and the trappings of life that are not really important but that we give importance to. There is the fear of being different; there is the fear of being alone and not knowing what to do with ourselves; there is the fear of losing money; there is the fear of appearing less intelligent. There is also the fear of dying which underlies the rest, for in some nameless place within, it can feel like if we stop running and creating things to do or being responsive to the things to do that someone else has created for us, we will experience the death of ourselves.

This is true, in a way, if the self has been defined in great measure by what is outer. Then that self, indeed, must die, in order that something new can be born from within. Here the cycle of birth and death is also part of the natural order of things. We let go of what we are attached to, creating a little death. We do this so that new life can be born.

The wish for simplicity and the desire to remove our feet from the treadmill of life must be strong enough to overcome the great pull of attraction that complexity and the outer manifestation of success has for us as a society. Sometimes this wish can be supported by a close friend who lives a different kind of life than we do. Sometimes it can be supported by going away on a retreat of whatever kind we are drawn to. Sometimes, it involves canceling everything else that we have planned for a day, a week, a month, or even longer, so that we can take stock of what is present and what is absent when we are alone.

In the end, our longing must often get stronger so that the pull of inner quiet and outer peace can become strong enough to pry our hands from around the straw supports for life that they are clutching, not even knowing that they are made of straw.

In the end, it is often longing alone that causes the heart to turn toward valuing simplicity, and toward finding the courage to take the first steps toward a different way of life.