Simplicity – November 25, 1984
Henry David Thoreau once observed that our lives are often frittered away by detail. He advised us to simplify! Simplify!
There is great strength in making our lives habits lean and trim. It will bring us needed strength to survive the growing complexity of our day and age. Too many of us overload ourselves with “extra baggage,” and then wonder why we lead quiet lives of desperation.
We who could choose simplicity, choose complexity.
Learning how little we can get along with, rather than how much, will help us develop inner and outer harmony. It doesn’t take long to learn what extraordinary spiritual freedom and peace such simplification and harmony can bring.
Even in spiritual matters, we can find strength in simplicity. Recall how simple and direct God’s commandments are: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; Love thy neighbor; Thou shalt not kill, nor steal. These rules are not complicated. And all who wish may understand them and obey them. But, even in biblical times, there was a natural tendency to complicate life, and thereby excuse oneself from God’s laws.
Neal Maxwell wrote, “We like intellectual embroidery. We like complexity because it gives us an excuse for failure… (lf provides) more and more refuges for those who don’t want to comply, thereby increasing the number of excuses people can make for failure to comply.”1
Simplicity should be a universal goal—not only for all people, but in all aspects of our lives. It means seeing every day as it is, not idly dreaming about what we hope it would be. It means finding peace of mind within us, not on a sunny make-believe island in the South Pacific. Happiness does not come through material prosperity and instant gratification, even though we live in a society of buy now, pay later. If we pamper our desires and let them rule us, the more they will demand.
It is better to focus on simple thoughts, simple needs, simple pleasures, and simple guidelines for life, rather than carry the heavy yoke of a cluttered existence. We would all do better to make simplicity of living a state of mind so we can retain a true awareness of life in both spiritual and temporal matters.
1 Neal A. Maxwell, “The Reality of the Living Scriptures,” Things As They Really Are, Deseret Book Company, 1978, p.101
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November 25, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,884