adding the meaningful…

“A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with—that’s poverty—but how efficiently we can put first things first. When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these, whether it’s clutter in your cabinets or commitments on your calendar.”
– Victoria Moran

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”
― John Maeda

I shared this story a few weeks ago on my blog but I thought I might post about it here, too. To be honest, I NEED the reminder right now.

Back in December, I was gardening on the side of the house when I noticed a female cardinal taking a bath in the saucer that was under one of my plants. There wasn’t much water in it, and it was kind of muddy, so I grabbed a “fresh” saucer from my pile of pots/saucers (much larger), filled it with water from the hose, and placed in a sunny spot on the side of the house so the water might stay warm.

It took literally 30 seconds to do and it’s even quicker to maintain it. Every other day or so I simply dump it, hose it out a bit, and refill it.

A few weeks later, I was in the kitchen making tea when I noticed that one of the trees in the backyard was literally FILLED with birds. It sounded like a jungle. We have feeders all over the yard and Tom’s built and put up a few little perches and stuff to encourage the birds to hang out here, but we’ve never had as many as we had on that morning.

I went and peeked around the side of the house to see what the draw was.

It turned out to be the plastic saucer of water. That saucer with water I just put down as sort of an afterthought was apparently the new neighborhood hotspot for the birds.

It was such a mindless gesture, something simple I could just do without even thinking about, yet it made an impact. Not only do the birds seem to like it, but I LOVE having all of them in the backyard, the cats love watching them, Winnie and my other two birds love exchanging “news” with them via squawks and chirps, and it’s just a good thing all around. I *like* nature, so having all those birds in my yard makes me very happy.

Like I said, I’ve shared this story before. But the reminders to “just keep it simple” keep coming up at me, over and over these past few weeks. I am learning that my tendency is to way overcomplicated and overthink everything. For some reason, I don’t *trust* myself very much, or trust that sometimes the simplest decision to a problem can be the exact right response.

The truth is, some of the smaller, seemingly “mindless” things that we do everyday wind up having the biggest impact on the world around us, and ultimately, our own lives.

I think I am learning that *I’m* the one who places so many conditions and “rules” on so many things For instance, if I were planning to create a bird bath, I’d probably do research online, make a list of products, ask Tom to build something, maybe set up a pump system, etc. Then I’d stress about maintenance and cleaning it. But just grabbing an extra saucer and filling it with water worked better than I thought. I mean, the birds don’t care if the water is in a plastic saucer or if it’s in some stone fountain, right? They just care that it’s fresh and available.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this. How many SIMPLE gestures and decisions do we avoid making because it doesn’t seem as if something simple could be enough, could be right?

I’m starting to learn that stress and frustration is a clue that things are more complicated than they *should* be. That the ramping up feeling of anxiety that churns in my gut is not a response to things around me but maybe a message saying “it doesn’t need to be this challenging- step back and look at the options and pick the simple one.”

Maybe, sometimes, that simple option is exactly what’s needed.