Keep It Simple!

At church today, we had a sweet older gentleman give a talk. One thing he said that stuck with me was...KISS...Keep it simple stupid! I'd heard it before, but I loved it. I wonder how many kids turned to their moms and said, "Did he just say stupid!?" It was funny, but I love that phrase. Keep it simple. How often do we add extra stress to our lives because we make them complicated? Sometimes we expect huge things from ourselves when we could just keep it simple. Later today, we went back in the evening for a trek fireside (it's another meeting that they sometimes hold after church...when I was a kid, I thought fire fighters were there). We are on a committee for trek, so we had a table set up for our ward (church group) youth to sign up for trek. They had asked us to make a sign to post on our table so that our youth knew which table they needed to go to (there were several different wards there). About two minutes before we left for the fireside, I used some markers and wrote our ward's name on a piece of printer paper with a note that said, "Sign up here!" Simple.

When we got there, some of the other tables had extremely elaborate signs. I was a little self conscious for a minute. My sign looked pretty pitiful compared to theirs. Then I realized, our signs were doing the exact same job, but mine had taken me about 10 seconds. It has been a crazy week, I didn't have time to make a beautiful sign. Also, I don't think they expected that. My sign did it's job perfectly.

Now, I know some people really enjoy making things like that, so I am not criticizing them. I am just saying that we shouldn't think that we HAVE to do things elaborately all the time. If you enjoy making a beautiful sign, go for it, but don't stress yourself out over it. A lot of my anxiety comes from expecting way too much from myself. Sometimes we may enjoy going above and beyond what is expected of us, but at other times, doing the bare minimum is completely acceptable.

Here are a few ways I try to keep it simple: (but I have to admit...sometimes I feel guilty about keeping it simple. I am going to try to stop that! Simple is not a bad thing!)

• My husband and I frequently eat off of paper plates. Does this make me a bad wife? I don't think so (although sometimes I worry about it). It does make it so I can spend more time with my husband instead of washing dishes. 
• I really am a little embarrassed about this one, I didn't send out thank you cards to everyone for our wedding gifts. (Does that make me an awful person!?) I am SO grateful for all of the gifts (people are so generous!), I just figured people look at the card for two seconds and then it goes in the trash. (I hope I don't get struck by lightning for this!)
• When one of my professors asks for a 4-6 page paper, I write 4. 
• When Jordan and I were over a large activity for our church, there wasn't any fluffy stuff. It was extremely successful, but I didn't worry about things such as decorations, pretty napkins, etc. My mind couldn't handle stuff like that! We had a wonderful time, and it was very simple. 
• In the Education program, a lot of people feel it is necessary to give cute little handouts when they do a class presentation. (Again, I'm not criticizing, some people love that stuff). When I do a presentation, sorry, but there aren't going to be any cutesy handouts!

When times get hard, remember to keep it simple! (And remember, you're not stupid!)

A sweet friend of mine who writes a blog wrote a post that was very similar to this subject. She talks about sometimes just needing a "Pajama Day." I totally agree, sometimes we just need a mental health day. Read her thoughts here.

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day!!