Why am I writing this blog?

The short answer: No particular reason, really. Isn't that the way with every blog? I'm writing it because I have something I want to say, right? 

The long answer: The simple path is necessarily an individual path (more on this later) yet we don't exist in isolation. There are others on the same journey. So, while I could blather on about my particular experience, I am much more interested in putting my ideas in front of others to compare to their experience. 

And, though each path is unique, there are some universal rules that we all must follow (gravity, for an obvious example). So, sharing ideas about challenges held in common can only help each of us individually. 

What is this blog about?

I do a lot of thinking about the simple life. Which, as it turns out, is quite a bit different than living a simple life. After ten years of reading and thinking about simplicity, my actual life really hadn't changed all that much. I spent a lot of time figuring out how things would be different (read: more simple) when I was making more money or when I wasn't working as hard or when my life wasn't so...well...complicated. But, for a variety of reasons, my life changed dramatically in 2006. And, not "changed dramatically" in a more simple direction, either. What the radical shift in landscape did do, however, was allow me to reflect on why I was still reflecting on the simple life and not living it. 

It seems as though just thinking about the simple life puts it forever out of reach. It becomes a goal to be attained. It is a finish line off in the distance, and when you can finally break through the tape, THEN you'll have the simple life. This makes "the simple life" something fixed, static, which it's not. Instead, the simple life is -- forgive the truism -- a process. It's the path and journey you are on already. It's not about changing your life into something else. It is about living the life you have in a simple and fulfilling way. Once I made that cognitive shift -- from a simple life (goal) to a simple path (process) -- I began to enact real change in my life. So, the simple path is not about dreaming, wishing, planning or hoping. It's about doing and being. It's about walking the path.

The simple path implies movement and presence, then, but I like the image for another reason. It has the sense of elegance of the golden mean of the Greeks or the middle way of Buddhism. The simple path represents balance among competing interests -- time, money, health, family, friends, the environment, society. It is the negotiation among the responsibility to self, responsibility to others, and responsibility to the planet. 

This blot is about traveling the simple path. I'm a fellow traveler hoping to share tools and tales with likeminded others.