Simplify Your Life Week

Since my world seems to be one of irony currently, let me share this week’s ironic occurrence shall I?

This week, the first week of August, has been designated National Simplify Your Life Week. I HAD a brilliant post planned for Monday. Today is Thursday, more than half-way through the week. This is the first chance I have had to sit down. This is not the brilliant post.

It continues: As I was learning some amazing things about patience and waiting, and scheduling margin into my life for the unexpected, we had at least FOUR (yes, you counted correctly and I’m pretty sure it’s actually a larger number) unexpected things come up, all of which required less simplified, and more chaotic, as we shifted, moved, and re-created margin.

Then, my chronic illness reared its head, despite my actual and for real, scheduling of it. This week, was to be a week of rest, as next week will be a week of no rest. (I learned years ago, that if I know my schedule will be especially hectic one week, I will need to literally plan rest time immediately prior to, and immediately following, extreme busy. Otherwise, I will head into relapse land, which leads to nothing positive, at all, ever.)

So, it is Thursday, I am pretty much wiped out, during Simplify Your Life week, despite my best efforts. And since I believe in transparency and honesty – WHAT A STUPID WEEK FOR IRONY!

The most ironic part of it all though, is I don’t actually think it’s stupid! I have laughed over and over! I just got done sharing with you all, how God’s time and plan don’t always match mine, but that was okay because it was okay!!

All the planning in the world, all the simplifying and organizing and creating margin doesn’t ACTUALLY do you any good when the unexpected happens. Whether it is positive or negative unexpected, it can still create utter chaos and stress.

I believe that the truest way to simplify one’s life is to let go of unnecessary expectations. Quit worrying about the dust that is collecting on the shelf. (Seriously, unless you have an entire group of OCD people that don’t actually know you, coming to visit, who really cares? Just so you know, I personally care very much about the dust, but in the long run I have learned I would rather spend my time caring about people and not dust.)

Stop worrying about impressing others, creating a picture perfect life, trying to do it all. First, you simply cannot do it all. Ever. (You do know that all those perfect pictures in magazines are staged, right?)

Second, decide which things really matter. Dust doesn’t matter, people matter. Mac & cheese with a can of mixed fruit for the side, when you can’t stand up long enough to make anything else is a GREAT dinner. Heck, the $$ menu is even better! It doesn’t matter what someone else thinks about how you feed your kids tonight – it’s food. They’re eating. You fed them. Case closed.

My ‘brilliant’ post of Monday looks nothing like today’s. I think that was the point.

PS - I could stand up today, so we had asparagus and steak. Last night I was grocery shopping, so everyone picked their dinner and put it in the cart. See, simple.