89. Review Your Life Regularly to Keep It Simple

Maintaining a simple life requires a certain amount of vigilance. It is not realistic to go through the steps to simplify your life and then think it will automatically stay simple. First of all, many of us have been in the habit of consuming and expanding for some years now, and old habits die hard. Second, our culture is not structured to readily accommodate those who choose to simplify. There are constant messages from the media, our families, our friends, and the Joneses urging us to buy this new gadget or try that new toy or, in one way or another, get back on the fast track. Most of these messages seem irresistible. Some are valid; some are not. It’s your choice.

We have friends who decided to simplify their eating habits. They were both dedicated gourmet chefs and owned practically every piece of cooking equipment known to man. When they went through the uncluttering routine in their kitchen (#1), they got rid of, among other things, the winemaking apparatus, the electric tortilla press, the combination capuccino/espresso brewer/milk steamer, the pasta maker, and the institution-sized mixer with 42 attachments. They spent many months rejoicing in their newfound liberation from cooking-equipment catalogs.

Then, before they knew what had happened, they woke up one day to realize that they had replaced the wine gear with a juicer, the pasta maker and tortilla press with an electric breadmaker, and the 42-attachment mixer with a seedsprouting contraption that took up half their deck space.

Simple? Not exactly, and it shows you what can happen when you’re not paying attention.