Simplicity

"There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape Nuts on principle."

-- G.K. Chesterton

I've got nothing against Grape Nuts. I've eaten bowl after bowl of them in my life. And I can't stand caviar. But G.K. is right when he recognizes that spontaneity trumps principle damn near every time.

Simplicity means living right here, right now aware of both the opportunities and impulses of the present moment. Principle is prejudice. It prejudges a situation and living buy it takes you out of the moment and into your head.

That doesn't mean it's always caviar for breakfast and Grape Nuts be damned. It means you eat Grape Nuts when it is intuitively right to do so, but not on the principle that since Grape Nuts are healthier that's what you are "suppose to" eat in the morning.

There are no "suppose to's." There is only this moment. And if you live it fully, and tune into your true inner needs and even your delicious whims, you will eat much more joyously.

And isn't that what it's really all about -- a joyous life? Why live five more years by eating Grape Nuts, salmon and sprouts if you're miserable every time you eat them? Longevity is not the goal. Living by your made-up principles is not the goal.

There is no goal. Death is our ultimate destination, at least in this lifetime. And so all we really have is now and now and now, on and on, until we run out of nows. Why not make them simply joyous?