Simplicity

Simplicity, everybody likes this word. Everybody like simple people, independent of the fact whether the people themselves are simple or not. In my opinion simplicity does not mean the simplicity of interface or simplicity of looks or simplicity of living standards, but it's simplicity of thoughts. Major thing is thoughts should be simple, if thoughts are simple then that will reflect in every dimension of life.

Why should I be simple ?? :-
In my opinion simplicity makes one's life free from tensions, peaceful, and happier. If you really want to know the importance of simplicity then have the taste of complexity J.

Why people are reluctant to be simple :-
Well I discussed about this topic with many people and found that most of the people like to interact or be with simple people, and not with the people with complex thoughts. But I found one more thing that these people are themselves not simple, their thoughts are complex and they keep on analyzing the things, scrutinizing the things unnecessarily, and keep on drawing wrong or unnecessary inferences. Some of the beliefs or questions against simplicity which I came across after having a discussion with many people are :-

• Don't you think simple people can be fooled easily ??
• Simplicity never helped anybody; if you want to survive in competitive or corporate world then you must be sufficiently shrewd.
• There is a major risk of being exploited or hurt by others to simple people.
• If you are simple then you will be odd-man-out.
• People around me are not simple then why should I be ??
• Generally there are very less friends of simple people.
• I am being hurt since a very long time, I can not trust anyone now, everybody seems to me cunning and selfish, if you do not analyze these people or scrutinize the actions of these people then there are fair chances of being hurt again.
• Simplicity !! huh .. its the most difficult thing to achieve this time in the universe.
• Conservativeness of the environment makes a person's thoughts complex.
• I have seen the extreme cases of dishonesty, cheating, diplomacy and cunningness, now things don't seem simple to me even if they are.

Factors Affecting Simplicity ..

• Negativity.
• Cynicism.
• Corruption.
• Scrutiny
• Conservativeness of environment.
• Lack of trust.
• Hypocrisy.
• Diplomacy.
• Ego.
• Expectations.
• Selfishness.
• Jealousy.
• Greed.
• Insecurity.
• Anger.
• Revenge.
• Materialistic Behavior.
  

Simplicity may have different meanings to different people, I don't know whether it is objective or not, but it has now become subjective. In my opinion if the thoughts of a person are simple, then the person is simple. But what is Simple?? Simple is the one which is free from sophistication. Lets analyze how above listed factors affect simplicity.

Negativity:-
Negativity of thoughts affects simplicity. A person with negative attitude towards life or negative attitude towards people can not be simple. Negativity initiates unnecessary threads and processes in mind which never let a person be free minded, and makes person's life sophisticated. Negative people are always disturbed and disturb others also by their actions. Negativity is one of the most important factors due to which people feel loneliness.

Cynicism:-
Cynicism is a attitude, which leads a person to think that everybody in this world is selfish and people are always driven by reasons, everybody has some reason behind his every action, nobody in this world can be trusted. This kind of cynical attitude leads to distrust and sophistication.

Corruption:-
Corruption, it is one of the important factors which affects simplicity. Corruption of environment makes people reluctant to trust other people. But the truth is we are all responsible to make the system corrupt. (See my previous post “Pragmatism and Corruption”).

Scrutinizing the things:-
Scrutinizing the things is an attitude which makes people to draw unnecessary and wrong inferences. This actually happens due to negativity. People keep on scrutinizing the things and drawing wrong conclusions from them, and assume many wrong things and then behave accordingly. This is the main reason why most of the relations become materialistic.

Conservativeness of Environment:-
Conservativeness of environment makes people to think too much on small things. Bring a fear, fear of rejection, fear of being ignored, brings lack of confidence, which makes a person to think a lot on small things.

Lack of Trust:-
Lack of trust is generally caused due to increasing the level of corruption. Corruption promotes cynicism and negativity, which in turn promotes Lack of Trust. Due to Increased corruption people are reluctant to trust each other, which makes the thought process complex.

Hypocrisy:-
Hypocrisy is the attitude in which people show those qualities to others which they do not posses. Generally hypocrites do this to gain the favor of people, but this gain is short term, when their hypocrisy is revealed to others they are rejected. The main reason behind why Love Marriages break is, Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the tool used by those people who pretend to be the “selfless” social workers, but are indirectly solving their own purposes. There are two things reputation and character, when we build a reputation which is very different from our true character, then it is called hypocrisy.

Diplomacy:-
Diplomacy occurs in two senses, positive and negative. Positive when it is used to not to hurt people, negative when it is used for the personal gains without caring about others.

Ego:-
Egoistic people are hurt very easily, just because of their fragile Ego, and this mixed with the feeling of revenge makes people dangerous. This kind of people can do anything to show them better or greater than the others or to satisfy their Ego. There is a difference between self-esteem and Ego, self-esteem mixed with high level of Expectations from people around with some feeling of revenge and anger, makes it Ego, and when those expectations are not fulfilled they show anger.

Expectations:-
In my opinion the reason behind most of our agonies are our Expectations. If we expect less than we can decease our melancholies.

Selfishness:-
Selfishness needless to explain is generated because of negativity, corruption, Ego, Lack of Trust, cynicism. Selfish people keep the personal gains on higher priority than the gains of the system or community. These kinds of people contribute a lot in making the system corrupt, they always think of the personal gains and don’t bother about the destruction or corruption of society or other people.

Jealousy:-
Jealous people can not tolerate other people around them growing. They always try to pull the “growing” people down or discourage them from doing right things and grow. These kinds of people don’t want to do hard-work and just want success by shortcut methods. Jealous people can not be loyal to anyone who is “more” than them in any respect.

Greed:-
Greed is one of the most important factors which make people corrupt. Greedy people want to earn a lot without doing much effort or by short cut methods, and being corrupt or practical provides them this facility. Corruption is increasing because it’s a high profit low risk business. People find it easy to earn money by dishonest means and by short cut methods.

Insecurity:-
Insecurity is the feeling which arises due to lack of confidence, due to fear that others will take up our place or will be more recognized than us, due to greed of more power and recognition, due to our own dishonest past-history and jealousy. This kind of feeling promotes individualism and suppresses socialism or the feeling of team work which is very much required to make bigger work more successful.

Anger:-
Anger brings the worst of a person in front. During the phase of anger a person loses his self control and does everything without thinking anything just to satisfy his Ego or feeling of revenge, which later on creates many other problems. Anger occurs due to Lack of Patience, High EGO, feeling of revenge etc.

Revenge:-
Revenge is the feeling which leads a person to think or cater to his personal interest more rather than the interests of the whole community. Feeling of revenge makes a persons life miserable. (For more: my post -> “Forgive and Forget …”).

Materialistic Behavior:-
Materialistic behavior gives more priority to material rather than anything else. It involves the behavior in which a person considers everybody as a commodity, and treats him/her a tool or a material to use. These kind of people interacts with only those people which may be useful to them, and don’t care about those who are not. They believe in Give and Take relations only; they don’t do anything for anyone, for free. They just go by what their brain dictates. Generally these people keep themselves behind a strong mask, to hide their vulnerabilities and weaknesses from others, and exploit other’s weaknesses and make use of their strengths.

Characteristics needed to be simple …

• Strong Mind-ness.
• Detachment but NOT indifference.
• Sensibility
• Good Understanding
• Courage.
• Patience.
• Open Mindedness.
• Fewer Expectations from people around.
• Lesser Egos.
• Farsightedness.
• Honesty and Strong Integrity.
• Hard Work.
• Independence.
• Optimism
• Feeling of Forgiveness
• Acceptance and Trust.
• Firmness.
• Unconditional Love All Attitude.

Strong Mindedness:-
Strong mind-ness gives the ability to a person to survive happily in hard times, to face the bitter situations with courage, to solve his problems by his own, not to be distracted easily by “emotional pulls”. One should not be driven by emotions, as said “Bhavnaon par vivek ka ankush to hona hi chahiye…”.

Detachment but Not Indifference:-
Detachment means being free from materialistic attractions and Indifference means a don’t care attitude, in which you don’t care whatever is happening around you. Indifference is a kind of selfishness, in which a person doesn’t bother about anything around him and he bothers only when he becomes the victim.

Whereas Detachment is the attitude in which the person “be in the world, but is not of it”. It means that you have open mind to everything but attached to nothing. This does not mean that you have to run away from your family, society, duties and responsibilities and be less sensitive, if you do this then this is indifference.

Now the natural question which arises in one’s mind is, why do I need to be detached ?? Answer is simple, “to be free from Emotional Pulls”, which always distracts a person from his/her goal.

Sensibility:-
A sensible person is the one who does everything sensibly. There is a difference between knowing what is right and doing what is right, a person who does what is right is sensible.

Good Understanding:-
Good Understanding involves looking at the situations with a broader perspective, with the perspective of all the people involved in the situation, and accepting the mistakes if we have done any and leaning from those mistakes.

Courage:-
Courage is living by one’s own values. It is moving forward with the belief that your actions are worth while. There are many dimensions of courage:-
Courage to face reality, courage to show grace in victory, courage to maintain honor in defeat, courage to learn, courage to confront, courage to be confronted, courage to show anger, courage to apologize, courage to challenge our false convictions, courage to speak out, courage to listen, courage to forgive, courage to face rejection.

Patience:-
There is a Chinese proverb; one moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. Patience gives you opportunity to think again what you are going to do, what are you actually doing and what will be the consequences of your actions. Sometimes actions of people around us make us assume something wrong about them, and we loose our temper and take wrong steps against concerned people, which ultimately messes up the situation. An intelligent step in such cases is to have patience and talk to the concerned person directly and clarify the wrong assumptions instead of showing anger. Anger is never a solution; there is nothing which can not be negotiated, but negotiation requires patience.

Open Mindedness:-
Open mindedness provides an unbiased attitude. An open mind is receptive to different ideas and opinions. It gives better understanding and acceptance of the situation and people as they are. It gives an opportunity to change, and changes are very much required to be with time, to loose conservativeness, to not to think much on small things and ultimately to be simple.

Fewer Expectations from people around:-
In my opinion Expectations from people around is one of the very strong reasons for all melancholies. Yes its true that its not possible to not to expect anything from people around, because when we live in society then automatically we start expecting something from them, but level of those expectations should not be that much, that it hurts, if those expectations are not fulfilled.

Fewer Egos:-
Fragile Ego leads to defilement in mind, anger, and feeling of revenge, feeling to dominate, feeling to win on any cost where winning becomes a possession. People with fragile ego are generally vulnerable as well dangerous to others. They are hurt very easily and as a feeling of revenge try to hurt people. Fragile Ego generally disturbs person and never let him/her free minded. Generally power (power in terms of money, power in terms of position), lack of patience, high expectations, reluctance to understand the situation, feeling of superiority, generates Ego.

Farsightedness:-
Farsightedness gives an opportunity to see the long term pain due to short term gain. It allows us to predict the possible consequences of our current action in future. Farsightedness generates a fear in people with weak integrity and they pretend to be honest to minimize the loss, on the other hand it generates confidence and motivation in people with strong integrity.

Honesty and Strong Integrity:-
Honesty gives confidence, confidence of being right. Honesty contributes a lot in achieving simplicity; if you are not honest then you can not be free minded and the “success” achieved though dishonest means is also short-term. Dishonesty is actually the result of shortsightedness; people generally give more priority to short term gain rather than long term pain and adopt dishonest means.

Strong Integrity is a quality of being whole or undivided. A person with strong integrity never compromises for his morals on any condition. (For more … read my previous post Pragmatism and Corruption).

Hard Work:-
Hard work is must on the way of honesty. Most of the people are reluctant to do hard-work and want success by short cut methods, but success achieved through shortcut methods or by dishonest means is also short term. Honesty and hard-work are directly proportional to each other.

Independence:-
Independence has many dimension, Independence to choose, Independence to think, Independence to speak, and other physical independences. Dependence on anybody in a limit is OK, but over-dependence is a kind of paralysis which makes one reluctant to work.

Optimism:-
Optimism is the most important characteristic which is required for simple living in my opinion. Optimism leads to the positive attitude towards the life. Optimism leads to greater rate of learning, in which a person learns even from his mistakes and losses. Optimism gives a perspective in which person does not consider his hard times as his fate but an examination to test his capabilities. Optimism keeps negativity away and let people to search for good in people, rather than bad or mistakes. Optimism makes people more lively and happy.

Feeling of Forgiveness:-
Feeling of forgiveness is must for healthy and friendly relationship. I have seen people burning in feeling of revenge which always disturbs them. Feeling of revenge is actually generated due to high Ego, Expectation, anger, reluctance to understand the complete situation and high distrust. One of my most favorite quotes are, “Sometime things messes up in such a way that its better to forget and forgive the concerned people rather than to find a solution.”. (For more … read my article “Forgive and Forget” ..).

Acceptance and Trust:-
Due to increasing corruption level and cynicism generally people are reluctant to trust each other which ultimately affect simplicity. While trusting people around us we expect many things from them, that they will care our emotions and will not exploit them, they will not spread your personal things to others; they will not ostracize you because of our background, concerns, problems and mistakes. Well I feel if you are strong minded then it would be difficult for others to exploit your emotions or make use of you; If you are straightforward or are not diplomatic then you won’t have any fear of leakage of information and if you are among sensible and understanding people then they definitely won’t ostracize you just because of your background, concerns or problems. Generally people do not discuss their emotions with anyone because they are afraid of being it to be exploited. These kinds of people keep themselves behind a strong mask to hide their vulnerabilities and feel themselves strong. But in my opinion this is a kind of cowardice, in this way you are not strong, you are trying to hide your weaknesses, instead of making your weak parts strong. Real courage is when you don’t have any fear of exploitation of any of your emotion, weakness or anything and you are ready to discuss anything with anyone, and if people try to exploit them then you are fully prepared and face those situations with courage and those things doesn’t affect you. I have seen people who keep on analyzing other people around them and trying to find out whether the people around them are trustworthy or not, but if you are really “strong” as I described then you won’t need to analyze anyone, you will be able to accept people as they are, this kind of life will be full of courage and confidence. So,

“Be fearless; Fearlessness is the message of Upanishads” – Swami Vivekananda.

This is of fearless life will make you more honest, you will not need to be diplomatic to hide anything, you will face the situations with courage, and will be liked by most of the people around you.

Firmness:-
To be firm on our ideals, views and morals is very much required. This kind of firmness requires strong integrity. If we are blown by the air surrounding corrupt people, then it implies that our integrity is weak.

Unconditional Love All Attitude:-
At last in my opinion LOVE is the solution of all the problems. Unconditional Love takes away the feeling of insecurity. When you are fearless, and accept everyone as he/she is, then you stop categorizing the people around you in categories like “Trustworthy” and “Non-Trustworthy”, everyone seems you to be equal, and you start loving everyone. This kind of Love all attitude gives you perspective like earth is really a place to live and its no more less than heaven. Believe me heaven and hell both are here only on earth, it just depends on us what we choose.

In the end I would like to say that the phases of negativity, distrust, cynicism, selfishness, jealousy, and other complexities comes in everyone’s life, but one who come up from all these and still trust people around, avoids negativity, has patience and other characteristics as described, achieves simplicity. In the end I would say …

“Simplicity is the peak of all complexities.”