Intentional Simplicity

Does anyone else feel like life these days is just WAY too complicated?

When I think back to my childhood two words come to mind. Wholesome and Simple. Now I realize life always seems more simple when you are a child, but I really feel strongly that life is more complicated these days than it needs to be. When I was young I don't remember the TV being on a lot. Instead, my Mom would listen to the radio. I remember spending a lot of time outside, playing with the neighbors or climbing our tree in the backyard. Or running through the sprinkler attachment on the hose. I also remember reading a ton of books as a child. And not the kind you download onto your latest electronic device. A lot of my toys were simple and wooden, and they allowed me to use my imagination. They didn't try to do my thinking for me.

Fast forward to today, and life just feels crazy. I feel like I am overstimulated by life every single day. I get that probably 80% of that is because we have 4 little kids! That's just the nature of having young children, and lots of them. (And being a Mom and always trying to do a million things at once)But still....I often feel like we are making life harder than it needs to be. Technology is supposed to be this amazing thing that helps make life more efficient and faster and easier. And yet I kind of hate it. I hate that before I even get a chance to say good morning to my husband, I have 39 new emails and 16 facebook notifications waiting to be read. I hate that instead of having a family conversation at the dinner table, someone will inevitably ask Alexa to join in on our conversation. I hate that I am constantly trying to track down cell phone chargers and manage the apps on my phone and check the boys' video games for inappropriate ads.. I hate that the soundtrack to our life is the pinging of cell phones.

And the thing is, I KNOW how to live a more simple life. Intuitively, I know what is best for my kids. I think to achieve this simpler life I'm longing for requires a great deal of intentionality. It means I have to put down my phone more and know that it's OK to not check it for a while! It means removing my laptop from my kitchen so I am not always lured into the social media world. It means trusting that my kids will be satisfied with a ball and a bat, or a book and a hug, rather than some fancy toy. It means doing what comes naturally instead of looking to the crazy world around me for guidance.

But darnit, I feel like it's me against the world sometimes to achieve that kind of life. (This is the same way I feel about feeding my kids a healthy diet.) I know how to exercise and feed my body properly....I don't need a new app for that. I know how to sit down and read my kids a bedtime story. I don't need to let them watch YouTube before bed. But somewhere along the way I think we all stopped using our brains and started relying on gadgets to do our thinking for us. I don't know, does anyone else feel this way?

I'll leave you with this....my kids trying to play baseball in our small backyard. And trying to get Jenna to hit the ball. Ha!