FROM ANNOYING, DUMB CHAOS TO PLEASING, SMART SIMPLICITY
By Bill Cottringer


I have lived a life of total ADHD chaos that has been chockablock full of animated amusement, extremes in joy and pain, heaps of clutter and lots of life lessons with hard edges. The most important thing I have learned in all this chaos is the wisdom of simplifying. Here is a simple game plan guarantied to hit the bull’s-eye—the essential things you must do to get what we are all after, which is a reasonable sense of happiness, success, peace and contentment.

EAT RIGHT

You are what you eat and so if you don’t like who you are the solution is quite simple—eat right. The hectic pace of today’s living has probably brought about two main ways to keep us from seeing this simple solution—fast food and substance abuse. No time to eat right and gotta get rid of the stress one way or the other. The fact is that these two input mistakes created an enormous industry of nutrients and supplements, not to mention the mental health field. The key to making the transition from wrong to right eating is exercise. When you do something to exercise, your body wants to be treated like a temple rather than an amusement park, which in turn requires eating right.

WORK AND PLAY HARD

Two thirds of life involves work and play, so there is no reason not to get these two things right. But, a shocking imbalance between these parts of life is more the norm than not. The simple solution is to put a little effort into knowing what your natural talents are (what on earth you are here for), and then develop and apply them to make life more enjoyable for yourself and others, and then reward yourself with the fun your deserve for your efforts. When you do this, both work and play become more fun. And then you will have more energy and less chaos to do all these other things, raising your level of happiness, success, peace and contentment.

FORGIVE AND LOVE

Good relationships are happiness; bad ones are unhappiness. There are only two simple things anyone has to do to have good relationships—to forgive and forget past mistakes and to learn how to love unconditionally, which is just another way of accepting people where they are before you fail to make them into what you want. These two positive things have to start from within—you have to forgive yourself for wandering astray into all the alluring chaos, accept what chaos you have helped create, and love yourself to simplicity, before your relationships with others become happy. In other words, pay better attention to what you have before you don’t have it.

MANAGE YOU MONEY

The lack of money is usually the result of a life of chaos, because economic rules are so simple they get out of sight easily—the balance of what you have is always a product of what you have coming in minus what is going out. Credit cards are only an illusion of denying that simple in-out reality and make the growing gap less threatening. And the simple rule of happiness is that if you can’t be happy being poor you certainly can’t be happy being rich. What you have, will never be enough until you learn to manage it well—spending within your means and saving for a rainy day. Life is one huge bank—You never get to make a withdrawals until you make your deposits. So simple but so true .

SLEEP WELL

Fortunately my own mind shuts down when it is time for me to go to sleep and it has always been that way, probably because at that time, the energy finally runs out. I guess good sleep was my gift that I didn’t have to work at. But good sleep is not something everyone enjoys. The prescription is a simple one though—do all these other simple things and then use what extra money you have to buy the very best bed, mattress, pillow, sheets and comforter to make a great place that is easy to sleep in. Eat right, work and play hard, forgive and love, manage your money and you won’t have the worries to keep yourself from sleeping well.

Now you probably won’t apply this simple roadmap to success for one main reason—you will have to figure all this out on your own, in you own way and on your own time schedule. This is my solution for my life, not yours. But there is one main obstacle in your way that you might want to consider doing something about. Whether you live in a small rented apartment or own a large house, more than likely, you have way too much stuff. Consider simplifying by getting rid of stuff in your cupboards, closets, drawers, basement, attic or garage that you haven’t used for the past year (unless you do have the space to save it to become a valuable antique!). A simple living environment may help you see your own prescription for simplicity clearer.

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security, Business Success Coach, Sport Psychologist, Writer and Photographer from Issaquah, WA. He is author of Passwords to the Prosperity Zone, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, and The Bow-Wow Secrets: How Dogs Live Simple Lives & People Don’t.