Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius, 551 BC- 479 BC
Hello, coffee lovers and avid readers! Welcome to Olive’s Tasty Quotas at Olive’s Café, where you get a taste of philosophy and messages from works of art.
In my previous articles, I have been touching on quotes from film and music, so I needed to take a break from them and talk about this quote told by Confucius. I would get into his history, but then it would take about 8 pages, maybe more, so if you want to learn more about Confucius, feel free to do your own research, and if you like, comment below on your research.
I don’t remember where exactly I got this quote from, but it could have been from any of the social media platforms. But ever since I came across this quote, it has been stuck with me ever since. Once I learned about this quote, I started to ask a lot of questions about life. The most important question I keep asking is, “Why is life so complicated?” The answer is right in the quote: life is actually simple, but we just insist on making it complicated, and the main reasons I believe we make life complicated are because of validation, expectation, and standards.
I have always heard that life is difficult, and it makes me wonder why people say that all the time. From what I hear, life seems difficult because there are so many obstacles and hinderances in our lives that get in the way of what we want. We always want something, and some of us would go to great lengths to get it. Even when we make plans, it’s important for us to make sure that everything runs accordingly. Unfortunately, unexpected events get in the way of making sure of that. It’s hard for us accept the fact that things happen for a reason, and it’s even harder to move on because we expect so much out of life. What if we just stop expecting so much out of life, and just anticipate the inevitable so we can just say, “Well, that’s okay then. I’ll see about doing something else.” It’s hard for all of us to do it because we’re just used to planning and expecting.
And why do we have so many standards? Why do we need to have so much of it to meet our expectations? Isn’t having standards on other people make life difficult? (I swear to you, this is a genuine question that I’m even asking myself. It’s not rhetorical.) For example, I even have a hard time dealing with people because I expect so much from people, and when they don’t meet the standards, I end up complaining about how life is complicated. However, I find out that once I let things, let alone people go, life does end up being simple, as it should be. I believe that we fear letting go expectation and standards because once they’re gone, we can’t get them back, and we lose control of what we’ve been holding onto for so long. However, I think that’s the whole point of letting go, so we can have that simplicity in our lives.
Take a look at minimalists: they don’t depend on so much stuff because they understand that they don’t need a lot of material items to be fulfilled and happy. They’re satisfied with the simplest things that surround them. So, what is it about the material things that surround us that makes us “happy” and why do we have so much of it when we’re not even happy in the end? (If someone says that they are happy, then why get more stuff?) What I learned from minimalist that they don’t get more stuff, they declutter to have more freedom in their space, making their life simple.
I genuinely believe that life is simple when we take away the things that complicate our lives and put them away. As harsh as this may seem, we can even take away the people that complicate our lives. (Just keep the ones that accept the way life is.) We can always take away the material items, standards, the expectations, the validations, just about anything that hinders us from enjoying our lives more. Just keep things simple so that life can be simple.
One thing’s for sure, life truly is simple once we get rid of the things that make it complicated. We just have to let go and let life be simple.
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