You decide you want to create a simple life. No, you crave a simpler life. You are committed to making it happen. You can picture it, feel yourself moving towards it. How hard can it be? The goal is less. Because you have never done this before you assume it’s a straight line.
Well, there are not very many straight lines. I think it’s aging. When you’re young and naive you make the lines straight. You force them, the lines, to go in the direction you want. No matter what. Because when most of us are young we are not familiar with consequences. And if you are not in the habit of planning for the consequences, the straight lines come more naturally. Also when we are young we have a great deal more strength, energy and guts to just plow through.
Then you are older. You have experienced the concept of the consequence. Ouch. So you slow your roll. Now comes the habit of thinking before you do something. Not analyzing, not fretting and spending too much time thinking, but more like a pause. If you are lucky you spend most of your time “weighing” risk against reward. It’s called maturity. Not everyone achieves it and some better than others. But you have hopefully learned the cautious pause.
Now, you are just old. You have old age ADHD. You have to make a decision and you can’t stop thinking of all the different ways it could play out. Now, your decisions have time limits. “I have to get it right this time.” I don’t have time to get it wrong. This is where simplifying becomes complicated. You are adding more steps to achieve not having as many steps. But if you see it through, and the simple life is yours there is an extra bonus for waiting for you, rest. It’s a good thing your life is simpler because you are exhausted! Creating a simpler life is complicated AND exhausting.