We live in the information age, and in my opinion, it has make our life somewhat more complicated than before. Perhaps it’s due to the unlimited amount of information that we’re exposed to and the countless of options available to us.

Our designers are coming out with more and more complex designs. Our building architects are doing the same. Our consumers demand more and more features in a single product even though they don’t need all of the features. And our doctors are giving us more and more medicines when the simpler approach would be to drink more water and eat more fruits.

Well, in some cases, going the not-so-simple direction does help but most often than not, it just complicate things. Perhaps we are being trained this way, or our environment forces us to become this way. I don’t know. All I know is, we are starting to lose what we always call “common sense”. Ever heard of people saying “common sense is no longer common”? Maybe that has something to do with our way of life which ignores the simple stuff and focus on the not-so-simple stuff.

Heck, some people even come out with many different ways to cut a fruit!!

But people, I guess it’s time to wake up a little and be aware of how simplicity can actually improves our life. There are many problems which don’t require us to think of complicated and complex solution. All they need is one simple solution, that’s all. Not everything is complicated, so don’t assume everything to be complicated. Start thinking the simple way and if cannot be solved, move on to more complicated solution.

Hope it helps.

p/s…… the reason I am writing this post is that, nowadays, i really notice a lot of us tend to think a bit too much on a problem. We would think of sooooo many complicated solutions and yet failed to solve the problem. Why? Because the solution is supposed to be simple and straightforward, but most of us just failed to figure it out.

Note: this post is a little bit personal since I talk more about myself. LOL.

I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to be sophisticated. But the other day, a good friend of mine met me up for dinner and she threw me this question “Alvin, have you ever thought of changing your style? Perhaps to be more sophisticated?” And that question gave me a shock because I’ve never expected anyone to ask me that kind of question.

But it only took me a few seconds before answering her “I’m just a simple guy and I like the way it is now”.

Maybe she was thinking “no wonder you can’t find a gf” but ahem, that’s another topic altogether.

Her question actually made me think why do people want to be sophisticated in the first place? Is it so that they can enjoy more sophisticated things in life, or is it so that people would view them as somewhat mysterious? I have no idea.

But one thing I do notice is that nowadays, more and more people are adopting ‘the’ sophisticated lifestyle. They dine in luxurious restaurants, stay in luxurious hotels, drive nice cars, etc. Simple things are just not attractive or fun enough for them anymore. To be honest, I do have friends who are like that. Maybe they will say this is the right way to enjoy life.

However, I have different opinions on this. I don’t mind enjoying those things or to join the sophisticated lifestyle group once in a while but nowadays, I prefer to go for the simpler stuff. My aim is to be a minimalist. I try to clear off things on my desk as much as I can, wear as simple as possible (minimalist doesn’t mean wear as little as possible) and declutter anything which appears to be overcluttered for me.

I’m still far from that but that’s the direction I want to go.

For me, even a minimalist can enjoy life and be happy with it. Because in the end, the things that will really bring happiness to people are those little things in life that people don’t normally notice. And well, you can’t notice these simple things when you are blinded by all those sophisticated things.