complications

life is an interesting process. as you move from day to day you are given the choice of making your life simple, or making it … not so simple. you are given the chance to make decisions every minute, some are easy, and some are not. some of these decisions are obviously important; many take time to show which they are. in the end, the advice from albert einstein is the best one can follow, “keep it simple”.

the question is, why do so many people have such a hard time following the sage advice from one of the smartest men of the last century? as we make choices, most of us are smart enough to sense if something is going to be good for us, and yet we still make the decisions we know are doomed to cause issues. it is not a surprise when things blow up in our faces, so why do we make these choices in the first place.

the simple answer would be that we want the things we decide we want. we do the things that we decide to do. we live the lives that we decide we want to live. but, this is not always the life that we think we want; or the life that we planned to have. we life our lives, we make our decisions as they come, and our course takes twists and turns as we move along. the twists, when they are not all pleasant, are then called complications.

why is life so complicated? well, because we make it that way. we allow ourselves to act in ways that we are embarrassed about. we allow ourselves to do things we tell ourselves we should not want to do. we act in ways that we later wish we hadn’t.

as catholics we are taught the seven deadly sins. these are the major leagues of sins, the ones that REALLY get you in trouble. they are the mortal sins; they are the ones that guarantee you a place in hell. as a good catholic, one who went to catholic school, i have to admit that i had to go to wikipedia to make sure i had them all right:

lust (excessive sexual appetites)
gluttony (over-indulgence)
greed (avarice)
sloth (idleness)
wrath (anger)
envy (jealousy)
pride (vanity)


this list makes me think not only of my own behavior at times, but of animal house. dean wermer giving the wonderful advice “fat,drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” it also makes me realize that many things fit into this group of behaviors. given my past year, i have to admit i have engaged more than one of these within recent memory.

if we look at the list we see that they are not focused on a simple action, but the excess of the action. eating or drinking is acceptable to the catholic, but over eating or over drinking is gluttony. we bring complication to our lives by over indulging in behaviors that we enjoy, and sometimes that we know is bad for us. we do this because we want to. we want to because…

well, if we admitted why we wanted to we would not be as complex as we think we are.

the great thing about the einstein quote above is that albert had a bit more to it. the full quote is, “keep it simple, as simple as possible. but no simpler.” this to me is much like cicero’s “everything in moderation”, with professor savage pointing out, “everything in moderation means moderation in moderation.” both of these points of advice have stayed with me for years. they both say that lack of moderation is part of the normal course of life.

do what you want, enjoy your choices, but don’t call them complications if there are impacts to you. life is both simple and complex, but how you act and react is what will set you apart from those around you. life is only as complicated as you make it. whatever you do, enjoy it.