The Source of a Joyful Life (life, leadership and meaningful impact).

A Joyful Life

I’m sure I’m not the first person to say,

less is more.

And I don’t exactly mean it in the way it might sound.

There is something very cool about the message, ‘keep it simple’, and we probably know there’s some grain of truth there.

But…

…most of us don’t live with ‘nothing’ or even the idea of nothing.

Most of us tend towards complexity. Even when we think we are stripping away we are actually adding more layers .

Those might not be layers of stuff but they are layers of what we think about the the amount of stuff we do or don’t have…

Puzzling? Maybe.

Paradoxical? Probably.

Keep it Simple? Or Not?

I love the shiny. In my stuff, the books, the pretty patterns on clothes and art. I definitely lean to ‘maximalism’, and this is not going to be a call for de-cluttering, do that if you want to, but I like my ‘stuff’ in all its glorious and even a little disorder.

And what about all that hidden accumulation?

The realm of ideas? The clutter of the mind?

There is a hidden ‘maximalism’ there too.

We devour ideas, we debate, we argue, we read, we nuance, and we nuance some more…

I get it, me too.

I’m definitely not the person to tell you ‘less is more’ but I do want to tease apart the difference between the creating and the creation, so that you can perhaps see something new about living a joyful life.

First Principles?

I have a client who loves to go back to first principles. She’s a complex thinker, an analyst turned senior leader and she likes to understand things (which can sometimes be a cause of stress for her.)

We’ve talked extensively about what that phrase means and what those ‘first principles’ are when it comes to leadership, and we both know, after months of exploration, that they have nothing to do with the myriad of text books and training programmes, or management consultancy sales pitches.

She knows that there is a simplicity to being human, in the same way there is a simplicity to most things.

It’s Normal to be Dazzled

And… we are also attracted to the dazzling, to understand something, to make patterns and create stories, metaphorical and real. It’s how we are wired. Even when those stories are about simplicity, I bet you will find textbooks and theories and training courses…

There’s an underpass near where I live, en route to the supermarket. My husband and I walked through at the weekend and the graffiti artists were there, painting over and re-creating their art on the concrete.

Oh, what a shame to paint over the old ones.

he said.

Yes, I get that, the regret of losing the form—an absolutely normal reaction; we feel love so of course we experience loss. But this is their process and covering the old is part of that.

There’s something beautiful in it I think, something honest. It is, in its own way, a statement of who we are.

Creating Rather than the Creation

We design complexity because we can and that’s the beauty of being human; that’s one of the those first principles my executive loves to talk about,

That it is the fact of creativity, not the object of the creation that drives us.

She likes that a lot because it’s made her own drive much more restful, while still being fierce. She can put down the desire to get somewhere, knowing the true beauty is in the travelling.

And I find for myself it’s also much easier to see when I am being tempted by a process or an object, and to distinguish distraction from desire.

When we become aware of the expression of our creativity, it’s easier to let go of the need to own or to attach to the end-product. It’s much easier to let go, and start again on the next project, not regretting the time spent but loving that we worked together, waiting for the next creative spark. It’s much easier to admire someone else’s work rather than feel the need to take something from it, to make ourselves less than because it wasn’t our creation.

It’s so much easier when we know that everything is created from first principles and it’s a necessary part of being human to we go back to them, and, therefore we need never worry about not being enough, or knowing enough, or owning enough.

Life’s a lot more simple that way, and less does not have to be more.

Oh, and it’s also the foundation of a joyful life…

Did I say that already?

With love,

Cathy