A Simpler Life is a More Satisfying Life

I was reading an article by Wendy Koch from USA Today titled For Many, A Simpler Life Is Better. It’s about this new movement to limit the number of things you own. In fact, someone in San Diego, a man named Dave Bruno has launched a blog called the 100 Thing Challenge. His whole concept is to try to get people to limit the things they own down to 100 items. That is not that many things, but people that do it seem to feel free and less stressed than deprived. One of the trends in the article is that only half of all consumers say they already have what they need, meaning they don’t need to buy anything. In the American Dream Project I’ve often talked about where you commit for a month not to buy anything other than food or the current necessities that you use every month. Try it for a month, try it for 2 months, try it for 6 months and just see what happens. This is a whole movement called Voluntary Simplicity. Its got a lot of traction because people are finding a simpler, less cluttered life is actually a better more satisfying life. That is a civil lining. If it really takes hold however, our recession will undoubtedly last a little longer, there will be fewer stores and less consumption, but on balance that’s the only thing that’s sustainable.

Why Do You Work?

I was hit by a flaming arrow by a Forum piece in USA Today last Monday written about God (The God Choice).  It was written by Barbara Bradley Hagerty whose new book is Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality.  Her book asserts that all of us are confronted with a nagging choice.  Under scenario one all of human consciousness resides inside the three-pound slab of meat called our brain.  In this scenario, the meaning of both the universe and our daily life, our family, and anything else we might care about are the results of brain chemistry.  All meaning and all morality is made up.  All reality is material.

The other choice is to look at our brains’ design as a radio receiver capable of receiving inspiration and wisdom from a source beyond our personal biology.  Furthermore, this greater wisdom is constantly being broadcast whether we tune into it or not.  Neurological research on people who meditate, for instance, develop parts of their brain that enables them to reduce negative stress, improve sustained contentment and creative responses to challenges.  This she proposes is like putting a big antenna on our inner radio so we can receive clearer, deeper and more inspiring wisdom from a source beyond our brains.  Why should we believe this?

Well, the truth is no one knows what consciousness is.  What we do know now is that people who have had all brain wave activity cease in their brain due to a medical procedure can still experience complete consciousness even when they are brain dead!  (See the case of Pam Reynolds).  The implication is that our unique human consciousness appears to exist independent of our physical brains.  Wow.

So what’s spiritual meaning have to do with our daily life?  It turns out, plenty.  I was conducting a training of a global brand name company last week for a group of senior sales executives who were dealing with the brutal impacts of unrelenting stress performing at a high level in this crazy economy. One of the questions I asked is “Why Do You Work?”  As the answers flowed it soon became apparent that we work to live rather than live to work.

Then I asked, “What makes life worth living?”  In the many decades of doing this kind of work the answer is always the same.  The people we love make life worth living. Relationships are at the core of meaning because healthy relationships require us to go beyond our self-interest.  They ask us to love when people are acting unlovable.  They ask us to understand, to listen, to encourage, to be loyal and committed even when it’s inconvenient.  Especially when it’s inconvenient.  It’s relationships of love that give us the glimpse of what’s possible when we authentically connect with another.  It is then when we feel the energy of selfless love instead of the grimy world of survival of the fittest.

So is love real, or is it just the result of brain chemistry and DNA?  Well, again, it’s a choice.  For me hell would be believing that life was meaningless and that love was a mirage.  It means that patiently listening to a grieving friend is meaningless self-indulgence.

Heaven on the other hand, begins when I have a moment of intense presence with someone I love.  In those moments heaven crashes over me in an ecstasy of profound gratitude that connects me to every element of the universe.  And in those unique moments I feel oneness.  Is that made up?

Of course sophisticated brain scans can identify the parts of the brain that light up when people feel this transcendence.  Some cynics believe because we’ve discovered the human antenna that there is no need to consider the source of the divine music.  It seems no matter what they insist, life has no absolute meaning.  But what if life does have meaning?  What if the common human experience of love is what makes life worth living because love is real?

My choice is to believe it’s more real than anything else.  My choice is to believe it’s more real than the economy, politics, retirement, a job, the Internet or my personal stresses and disappointment that the world does not conform to my agenda.  That is my choice because it is my experience.  What’s yours?