You do something. You thought it was simple and isolated.
People don’t react the way you thought they would.
The action affects situations or people you didn’t expect.
People see through your motivations that you thought were so pure.
But ego plays a role. And pride. Perhaps selfishness.
We’ve been considering simplicity.
Sometimes we must strip away our ego. And pride. And selfishness.
Before we act—what is the next right action. Considering kindness. Considering what we’ve learned from Jesus.
“The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days. It tells me that, despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is and how degraded the world has become, it just keeps on being beautiful.”— Nick Cave (Singer, Musician, Writer)
We can get sucked into cynicism and negativity so easily. Media, social media, conversations can accumulate ideas of how bad people are and how divided we are.
Poll after poll show actually the inverse. Most people are kind. Most people are helpful. Most Americans want basically the same thing—maybe with subtle differences left or right.
Listening to Nick Cave reminds us to look for beauty everyday. It’s there. Awareness is in itself a beautiful thing.
Some people look at the Gospels and see “separating the sheep from the goats.”
I see Jesus grieving for each person who came to him and could not find the courage or strength to make the right decision to change directions and follow him.
Just for today, look for the beauty in something—nature, a building, a relationship, seeing a parent with child. And then maybe you look tomorrow. And maybe it becomes a way of life which will change our very attitude toward life.
That would be a beautiful thing.
The same day I received an essay from Om Malik on simplicity and renewal and from my meditation teacher on stripping away complexity, I downloaded the next podcast from Tim Ferriss. He asked five acquaintances to reply with thoughts about what they have done to simplify life in 2026.
I offer some thoughts that you may find helpful.
Maria Popova noticed that she found herself in long conversations that were not nourishing her life. So, she stopped giving time to those conversations.
Morgan Housel replied with a “do nothing” thesis. His wealth basically consists of house, cash, and funds. He invested in a number of diversified funds. Then, he no longer found himself needing to make constant decisions. “The fewer decisions, the better.”
Computer scientist, professor and writer Cal Newport asks, “What request deserves a yes when the default is no?”
Craig Mod quit alcohol and decided to concentrate on only one craft (he is a writer, photographer, and occasional leader of long walks through Japan and southeast Asia).
Debbie Millman stewed over the decision to leave the corporation she had helped found or accept the offer to become CEO. Her boss and mentor finally told her, “If it takes four months to decide, you probably don’t want it.”
Thinking about deciding once and eliminating future emotional drain for decisions, I think of Steve Jobs. On a trip to Japan, he noticed everyone at the companies wore a uniform. He returned home. Cleaned out his closet. Bought black mock-turtle shirts and jeans. That was his uniform. No daily decisions. [He didn’t have my wife, who constantly wants me to add to my wardrobe—you need more colors…]
I wrote yesterday about how the word “neo” contains the meaning of not just new but re-new—refresh, strip away accumulated crud that a philosophy (or a life) attracts to return to the simple truth.
The same day that the article appeared the provoked my thinking about renewal meaning return to the simple beginnings, my meditation teacher dropped this statement into the day’s meditation:
Strip away added complications returning to simple presence.
Jesus made everything seem so simple. Yet, the bar for achievement often seemed impossibly high for the normal human.
Forgetting the bar, think only on the simple. Throw away all accumulated justifications and fuzzy thinking. Look at the few things he spoke with clarity. Living with these leads to participation in God’s Kingdom.
Simple, yet keeping it up requires practice and persistence.
“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.” ― Maya Angelou
This thought is similar to the Serenity Prayer attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
My professor in graduate school hated that last part about accepting things you cannot change. But that is ancient wisdom. I use this thought when accosted by the daily deluge of news (which I mostly ignore). If I can’t do anything about it, why dwell on it? Live in the present moment.
I also like the tag that Angelou puts on the thought—Don’t complain. Once again, why waste that energy?
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Philosophers have devised “razors” that “shave off” unlikely explanations. I rather like Hanlon’s Razor—Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
The razor of the day today is another of my favorites, Occam’s razor. “Explanations that require fewer unjustified assumptions are more likely to be correct.” We usually shorten this to “the simplest explanation is often the best.”
The other day, I read this thought from Adam in The Pump App (my fitness newsletter). I worry people overthink fitness and want everything to be perfect when it never will be. When you use that much brainpower stressing and beating yourself up, you are wasting the energy you can use to get moving forward.
The same thought holds true for far too many of us in biblical study. We think too much. Maybe Jesus meant what he said. Maybe there isn’t an underlying devious theology beneath what Paul wrote in his letters.
We do need to read a complete thought and put it into context. But there’s probably not anything beyond what Jesus said and what he did.
Don’t overthink your fitness experiences. Don’t overthink your various relationships. Don’t overthink Jesus. Take him for what he said. No more. No less.
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One weird path my career traveled over the past 10 years entailed becoming known as an “influencer.” I was an early blogger, twitter user, podcaster, YouTube podcaster in the industrial technology market. When Dell and then Hewlett Packard Enterprise were entering the Industrial Internet of Things market, they brought me into their influencer programs.
I didn’t let it get into my head. All the gigs ended after only a year or two. But they flew me around to lead customer discussion groups or write articles. Fun while it lasted.
I never saw myself getting into this big money influencer gig. In fact, I advise people to avoid almost all influencers on the Internet. I’ve seen real charlatans in my areas of interest such as spirituality or fitness or nutrition or AI.
Influencing aimed at helping others sincerely, rather than for profit, requires more than just glib talk on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.
In influencing others, example is not the main thing; it’s the only thing. -Albert Schweitzer
Mr. Rogers had a famous quote: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ There are always helpers.”
Question for me…and for you.
Which describes us:
Do we ignore things?
Are we an obstacle?
Are we helping?
Jesus hated people whose words and actions were not integrated. These reveal hypocrisy. I’ve recently pondered some of the political leadership class who are going around preaching one message, yet their personal life is completely opposite.
We have seen far to many of the religious leadership class whose cup is burnished bright on the outside, yet the inside is coated with crud. (To paraphrase Jesus.)
Do not be like these. Strive to align your words and life with the teachings of Jesus around love.
As one rabbi said, after the commands to love God and love one another, all else is just commentary.
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What did school teach you?
Memorize the text and remember long enough to repeat on a test?
Granted, It is useful to our lives to have memorized many things. Sure, you can look them up in seconds on your smart phone. But, what if you’ve made the intelligent decision not to always have the smart phone?
To this day, I still have qualms about chemistry. A year of high school and a further year in college did not help. I kept asking why. They kept responding, just memorize the balance equation and repeat it on the test.
But I was curious about how it all worked.
What is your religion teaching you?
Memorize these verses in order to recall them to win an argument?
Jesus often responded with a question when approached by someone with a question. Maybe that means questions are good. He also complimented people for asking a question.
Some people are afraid of questions. Perhaps a question might shake their faith. I’ve recently come across an interesting thought—The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty.
I don’t have faith in gravity. I’m certain that if I jump up then I will come down.
When Jesus says that he offers peace to us, I have faith I can receive that peace. But then I look around and question—there certainly doesn’t appear to be a lot of peace out there. What’s up, Jesus?
I’m curious. What did he mean? How do we receive it? What will it mean to us to ingest that peace?
It’s OK to question. It’s OK to seek that peace (or other things) Jesus offered with faith even though I may not be certain. That’s called life. Practices exist to help me find that peace. But circumstances exist that lead me to wonder if peace is possible.
I’m with the guy who was the most honest person in the New Testament, “I believe; help me in my unbelief!”
I will read, and question. I’ll continue to be curious. I don’t think curiosity really killed the cat. I don’t think it’ll kill be. I think we’re both stronger for it.
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Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 