simplicitude

[image error]Midnight Man, Kid Speedo, and the Swashbuckler. Behold our might!Yesterday my friend Rick posted a couple of photos of me and our friends from "back in the day." I had an uncanny ability to wear sunglasses in every photo. But beyond that, I was looking at this younger, much more clueless version of myself and I thought, "Those were simpler times." 

And maybe they were, in some ways. But after giving it some thought this morning I realized that at that point I was looking back at photos of an even YOUNGER Kevin and thinking, "THOSE were simpler times." I'm pretty sure there was a point at which I was in diapers, looking at finger-painted self portraits, thinking, "those were sure simpler times, five minutes ago."

I don't think any of our times are really "simple." We had different issues, and different levels of complexity, but in the moments we live them, every moment is kind of hectic. There are good times and there are bad times, and it's our perspective that makes them so.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a hell of heaven and a heaven of hell." 

-Paradise Lost

That quote from "Paradise Lost" sums up a few hundred years of self improvement advice. How we think, at any given moment, is how we see the world. So that moment, when we were 20 and hanging with our friends, seems pretty breezy and free to us at 40, but at that time may have been tinged with worries like, "Am I going to find someone? Will I find a job? Will I pass Finals?" It didn't seem so simple, back then.

It's not going to be as easy as telling yourself, "this too shall pass." But there has to be something to this idea that nothing is permanent, and that the issues we face right now aren't going to be issues forever. Maybe we have to constantly remind ourselves of it. Maybe it's a mantra we have to repeat in the face of every negative thought. Sometimes that's what it takes.

So I think I'll take a deep breath and look at my life right this second and say, "Those were simpler times." And who knows? Maybe I'll start to believe it, and maybe it will be true. And one day, years from now, I can look at a photo and think, "Wow, that's where all the simpler times started."