Less is More.

Confucius once said “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Couldn’t agree more with this statement. Anyone donning a plain shirt is deemed to lack personality. The more the prints and color, the merrier the outfit. Flamboyance is associated with the latter outfit. Little thought is given to how much time is spent in the selection of outfit. The dilemma doesn’t end at the check-out counter when purchasing clothes. It’s only the beginning. More often than not, we are spoilt for choice after yanking open the wardrobe. The myriads of choices and multitude of color therein is enough to light up an entire planet.

All heads are the same, but not all thoughts are the same is a quote I have encountered before of unknown origin. It rings true to my ears. A long while back, a colleague was caught between a rock and a hard place. He toyed with the idea of seeking permission to shut down the office and take everyone to his house to prove a point. The ridicule over his dress code had gotten under his skin. Day in and day out, he wore a black trouser and a white official shirt. Simplicity was his motto. However, many were under the misguided notion that he repeated the same clothes. He simply had a different perspective on life.

Owing to the sheer number of staff, logistical nightmare and continuity of business concerns, he opted to take a snapshot of his closet and share with the team. It was the era before digital cameras and phones neither had the capacity nor capability to take photos. The only option he had at his disposal was to borrow a film camera, purchase film, take photos, process the photos. Quite a tedious way to end an argument. All he ought to have said was that having standard, dull clothes freed up more time for him to engage in other meaningful activities besides staring at the closet and ironing multi-colored clothes every single day without fail. End of chapter; he opted for the long and scenic route though just to prove a point that he had multiple pairs of the same item.

There is an Ethiopian proverb that states “If you pick one end of the stick, you also pick up the other.” It speaks to the interconnectedness of cause and effect. In campus, while the rest of us struggled to attend courses, one gentleman opted to while his time away pursuing other interests. He deeply questioned the logic behind racking up a minimum of a hundred and twenty credit hours to earn a bachelor’s degree. Some of us were convinced that the stick had to be carried with all that pertained to it if the goal was to earn the degree. Success being the ultimate effect of putting in all the work. He stuck to his guns. Little did we know what he had up his sleeves. He was resolute and not willing to toe the line.

A few years down the line, I ran into the gentleman. We had both since departed the land of the free and the home of the brave. I met him at the reception of a telecommunication firm. I was on the way to a meeting and so was he. We engaged in a small chit chat and agreed to meet up later. After parting ways, my colleagues who accompanied me to the meeting and witnessed the encounter were astounded. They bombarded me with a million and one questions. All revolving around the gentleman I met.

Unbeknown to me is that he had become a big shot in the tech space and was waiting to strike a high-level deal with the head of the institution. He schemed and struck gold. While we racked up hours of course work credit, he schemed on only getting the hours he needed. It all came together like a perfect jigsaw puzzle. It was now clear why he moved from state to state seeking specific courses of interest. In as much has he did not graduate, the cherry-picked essential information played a pivotal role in the success he eventually achieved. Less yielded more and he capitalized on the freed-up time.

If your cornfield is far from your house, the birds will eat your corn is a saying that underscores the importance of proximity and vigilance in protecting what is valuable. If your house is big, chances are high that proximity to what you hold dear will be quite dicey. Woe unto you if your housekeeping style is best described as ‘’there appears to have been a struggle.’’ If this is the case, you might not be in a position to find the item you bought yesterday amidst all the clutter let alone the ones bought several moons back. In the absence of organization, a big house can easily morph into a lonely warehouse as will be illustrated shortly.

We once visited an older couple living in the leafy suburbs. Upon entering the main gate, it took us what seemed like ages to get to the main house. A clear signal of what lay ahead. The house was a sight to behold. Needed to look no further to seek an image for my goal visualization exercise. From the outset it appeared as if they had it all. It was the type of house whose mandatory feature is a door bell, and a good one at that. In the absence of one, a knock would easily vanish into thin air courtesy of the vast space. One’s presence can easily be missed. A security breach once took place and it took the owners quite a while to realize that a stranger had occupied one of the far end rooms. He came in late at night and left in the wee hours of the morning for days on end. He had the audacity to venture into the kitchen for a serving in the still of the night.

That aside. We were ushered into the house or rather palatial home. Engaging in a conversation required a non-existent microphone based on the distance we sat apart. Within no time, the kids explored the place and the host whose children, now adults had long left the house set out to find toys for the kids to play with. The last time they had seen the toys were ages ago, their housekeeping style was there appears to have been a struggle and their house was big. Quite a recipe for disaster. The old lady got worked up and her frantic attempts bore no fruit. She repeatedly mumbled “I know they are in here somewhere” as she sifted through the clutter of items. She threw in the towel and gave up trying. Less clutter would have accorded her more clarity to visually locate all items at her disposal. In closing, Socrates once said “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”