Striving For Simplicity

Today, I decided on purpose to not have any music on, or watch television, even to check the weather, which has been a bit of an issue for our area for the past few days.  I went about my morning quietly.  Soup on the stove, which in the quiet I could hear simmering.  The wood in the stove popping from time to time and outside the window, by my chair, a white winged dove, so close, separated by glass and perhaps a foot, I could hear his quiet cooing.  Soothing sounds, all of them.  It was in this silence from the electronic world, that I realized the true and honest passing of time.  I could feel that the hours were ticking by a bit slower.  I could feel my heart rate, slowing too.    It felt good to not be bombarded by the things outside of my quiet day.  I could think.  I had time to notice how the copper pot caught the colors of the room and how the candles of the tower changed the atmosphere.  I had time to think about how I have at times forgotten to live out my dream of simple living.  How, the simple life has often been kicked aside for a day or two, when I allowed it to.   I thought a bit about growing older and being at peace with it when we are surrounded by commercials and advertisements that tell us every way to NOT look our age.  I wondered what Tasha Tudors influence on people would have been had she lived a life of botox and face lifts.  Would Aunt Bee been a better person to Opy and Andy had she gone to the gym each day or spent $60 a jar on face cream ?  With these thoughts, silly and actually ridiculous, I realized that in striving for a simple life style, we have to fight upstream all the way.  We have to fight the mindset of much of the "modern world" .   We need to not buy into all the chatter about having this and that, and what we wear and can't wear.  How we approach aging and youth.  How we live each minute and how we have to fight this new mindset about waiting for anything.  Conversations in business it is reported, are getting shorter and shorter.  People loosing attention after 1 minute.  Frustration brewing within us if our computers take a minute to load some application.   How we can't seem to appreciate photos any more unless the color is enhanced and made brighter than reality.  Striving for a simple life seems to take a real conscious effort, one that makes us feel as if we are swimming upstream.