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theSimpleblog is about finding peace and connecting with life by simplifying it down to its basic elements, leaving you with the simple task of living. Life, like most other things, is most beautiful in its simplest form. By uncovering this simplicity, we remove self-imposed constraints and free ourselves to become occupied with living life beautifully.

My name is Jack, and I’m a graduate student in Southern California who’s had enough. I grew up in New York and after graduating college I was funneled into an underpaid, over-stressed career in finance.  After four years of soul-sucking servitude and weekend-to-weekend living (on a good week) making barely enough to pay back my college loans, I realized that it was time for a change. I wasn’t quite sure what that change should be, so I decided to pack my things up and head out to sunny Santa Monica, CA for a very long, very expensive vacation in the form of a Master Degree. While all of the sunshine and lack of florescent lighting helped a little, after one year I still don’t see the drastic improvements in my life that  I was hoping for.

I get annoyed over the smallest things in life, I’m lazy, distracted, out of shape, stressed out, still have no idea what I want to do after this vacation is over and just an all around mess. Sure, I shouldn’t have much to complain about and I’m generally happy, but I don’t feel as if I’m living up to my full potential; I’m not living a beautiful life. I tried all kinds of productivity systems and motivation tips to no avail before I realized that maybe the true path to living the kind of life I want is through removing the extraneous, rather than constantly adding to fix the broken parts.

So, like an Olympic swimmer effortlessly completing a stroke or a Spanish guitarist unleashing emotion through the strum of a guitar, I’ve decided to make life my muse and the instrument of my happiness. While I may not find harmony between my hand and a guitar or be so graceful with my body as to make a butterfly stroke look effortless, what I can do is become very good at living life. By stripping life down to its most simple and basic elements, I hope to connect with it on a level that most people can’t even dream of. Rather than just “living” life moving from one distraction to the next, I want to make love to life, molding it into something beautiful with the hands of a skilled artist.

With this humble goal in mind, I start the journey of simplification so that I can connect with myself, others, and the world…

j

Santa Monica, CA

2011