Trying to keep things simple

From friendships to virtual friending, from sleep deprivation to 24/7 information, keeping life simple is becoming progressively more complex.

Two hundred television channels, 1,200 calories a day, thirty thousand new products, $20,000 sweet sixteen parties, four rounds of playoffs in a professional sport.

It’s endless.

And the height of complexity is right here, lurking in our ordinary day.

How do you fix what is too complicated? Are some things as simple as they appear?

One issue, of which there is no shortage of written material in ink and bytes, is the topic of family priorities. Given the visual learning style of my household, it often comes down to a version of simple charades. I raise my hand as high as I can to depict the top of an invisible growth chart and reassuringly promise the most important thing is our family, and below it? Everything else. It’s sometimes been an unpopular, even financially demanding challenge to remain true to this credo, but we’ve done okay.

And if family life wasn’t intricate enough, then came our introductions to the smart phone.  Six hours over two days with a patient salesperson forged a commitment to Blackberry at a time when the Android technology was just about taking hold.  But the best part of the experience was when we went to see the technician in the auto stereo installation department.

Because we had an auto with Bluetooth before we had phones that could use it, he carefully cued each phone, but couldn’t get one to sync.

Finally, after consulting the thick manual a few times, my husband suggested turning off the car’s engine like a reboot. It worked.

This past year, my daughter’s sociology teacher provided an extra credit assignment: give up anything technological, electrical or mechanical for 24 hours. It sounded strangely familiar – like a weekly occurrence for the devoutly religious – but not necessarily built for the college student circa 2011. We don’t know if any student took the challenge.

My family tried our own experiment last spring that was not as technologically based, but just as freeing.  I requested we observe Mother’s Day without any organized plans; an event-free holiday. To my surprise and relief, it went off without a hitch and became a new family tradition.

“Think simple.” That’s what the grammatically incorrect ads from Apple used to recommend. From today’s perspective, the words are so much true and greatly needed in our current world.