Give a Damn: On The Complexity of Simplicity
“Dad, you see that dude’s watch? He’s rocking a Rollie at church.”
There are a lot of words and phrases I have no idea the meaning to, but judging by the watch on the dude’s wrist in the row in front of us, I knew our son was referencing a Rolex.
And yeah, damn, it was nice.
It reminded me of a similar, but drastically different text I got a couple weeks ago from a colleague.
“Hey dude, I noticed the watch you were wearing in that meeting today. What is it?”
I couldn’t wait to voice memo him back, meandering for 60 seconds or so about a story that could have been sent via text in 6 words.
It’s a $12 Casio from Walmart.
Black strap, white face, black hands.
No alarms, notifications, lights, stopwatches, insights, nothing.
Just the time, ticking away. The most precious resource on its endless march.
There’s some stuff that’s been shifting in me towards simplicity, in many areas of my life.
Faith. Priorities. Life order. Relationships. Work. Writing. Food. Transportation. Technology. Nature. Splitting wood. Driving with the windows down and the radio off. Ideas. Being barefoot. Sleep. Breathing.
Simplicity is so complex. At least for me it is. As the rush for chaos and noise and hurry and pressure and production and proving and performing and picking up the pieces of a fragmented, frenzied life pushes me into the belief that simplicity is impossible.
And yet, the simple stuff is the soil of where transformation takes place.
Stripping away the silly distractions until all that remains is the single, simple seed.
The brands we trust the most have mastered this ruthless commitment to simple focus.
And so have the elders and guides and sages who we all look up to.
The signals in our culture move towards simplicity. They’re like magnets of good in the sea of facades and plastic projections.
And it seems like, at least in my life and leadership, that it’s required work to hold tight and create the conditions for simplicity to take root.
We’re stuffed full on the consumption, information, and influencer buffet of complexity.
And we’re starving for simplicity.
A post PS: The simple stuff is almost always staring you right in the face. Patiently waiting for you to be silent, still, and less distracted to notice it. But it won’t wait forever. And it won’t bother competing with complexity.