In the last few seconds, you (yes, you) have blinked your eyes at least a couple of times. You didn’t notice it happening, in all likelihood, nor did you explicitly instruct your body to close your eyes for a split second to keep them moist and free of debris. Yet, even this involuntary action involved a complex series of electrical and muscular events within your body. Call it what you want, but even this most benign of physiological functions is anything but simple.
As a Western culture, we clamor for simplicity. We see it splattered all over the box containing our favorite income tax preparation software and on the bags of muffin mix we buy at the grocery store. If I want to open a new savings account at the bank up the street, I had better be able to accomplish that using little more than what’s in my wallet when I stop by and heaven help you if it takes longer than 10 minutes. Simplicity is damn near a requirement for so many of the products and services with which we interact in today’s world and it’s doing you a massive disservice. Why?
Because simplicity, in many cases, makes you lazy. It allows you to look at a new problem or challenge and admit defeat because it’s “hard”. For example…
Part of the reason (aside from the cost) that IKEA furniture is so popular is that a malnourished orangutan with a predilection for bourbon could build just about any of the pieces they sell during an episode of Lost. They include all of the tools you need (which is to say, they include an Allen wrench or two) and illustrated instructions on exactly how to assemble the clearly-labeled pieces. Simple. Trouble is, we get so accustomed to things being IKEA easy that we feel utterly put upon if constructing a piece of home furniture actually requires us to drill a hole in something.
Being a card-carrying member of the cubicle nation, I’ve come across my share of “TV dinner”-style microwavable meals. Remove the cellophane-topped plastic dish from the box, look on the back for how long I should heat it in the microwave and shove that sumbitch in there. And obviously I did this while disregarding anything about the power level or if it needed to be rotated during heating. Those were the glory days – now, you need to puncture the plastic above one portion of the dish, stir another after 2 minutes of cooking and, oh heaven help us, actually add some type of sauce or condiment at a relatively precise point in the cooking process. I’ve actually overheard lunchroom conversations between cooworkers complaining about the unnecessary complexity of microwave meals which cited things like I just mentioned. Ah, simplicity.
I think you get my drift.
N.B.: I’m not saying that simple things are inherently bad – far from it. I’m glad that I don’t have to think about all of the thousands of intricate processes it takes to allow me to type things like this into a computer. I’m glad that a working knowledge of internal combustion isn’t required for me to legally and safely drive a car. That we as a race of human beings have been able to abstract away the harrier parts of certain things is a wonderful thing. That’s not where my beef lies. It’s when we are unwilling to investigate or even consider the possibility that a better mouse trap might be a fitting solution when our current, marginally-effective mouse trap is so gosh darn easy to use.
So, how does simplicity make us lazy? Glad you asked.
Much like our IKEA example from earlier, most of us can’t be bothered to put forth a little effort to figure something out. Whether it’s getting your GMail contacts onto your iPhone or unclogging a toilet or setting up a new business, we’re far too quick to ask for help instead of getting our hands dirty. I’m just as guilty as anybody of this and I think it needs to stop.
I don’t need to spell out the immensity of information that’s available on the Internet. Just about everything you could ever want to do has, in some form or another, been documented. If the IRS sends you some weird piece of paper full of numbers and it scares the living hell out of you, Google probably knows of somebody who can explain it to you. If you think about creating a home-based advertising business for local ferret owners, well, perhaps you get to be the one to blaze that trail. The point is that even if you can’t find the exact recipe for home ferret marketing, you could probably cobble something together if you gave yourself an evening to research it.
What was the last project, problem or opportunity you avoided because it was “too hard”? You don’t have to be a genius to set up a blog, learn how to write software or unclog a kitchen sink. I’m far from a genius and I’ve managed to figure out how to do all three of these things. If you want something, put your hands into the mud and freaking *try*. I think you’ll be surprised how far you’ll go once you abandon the requirement of “simple”.
And don’t forget, “if it were easy, everbody would do it”.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
As the author of a blog called thesimplerlife.net your headline caught my eyes right away. I was ready to get all indignant and defensive but I quickly realized that you and I talk about two totally different types of simplicity here. In what you just wrote you seem to equate simplicity with “easy.” I agree that keeping everything as simple as possible can be a deterrent from ever doing anything worthwhile– if you keep things simple solely for the sake of simplicity. I like to keep things simple so that I can have the attention and focus to actually do the things I care about doing. One of those things happens to be learning how to do more “complex” things like coaching high level hockey and reading difficult books.
Most of the time “easy” and “simple” can be interchanged, but not always. In fact, a lot of the time the truly difficult thing to do is simplify.
Great post and thanks for making me think.
I saw your comment come through in Gmail and, before opening the message, I
could only see the first part of your blog's domain and that it contained
the word “simple”. I was ready to get an earful of epic proportions!
Yeah, I meant “simple” in the more “this needs to be simple” way rather than
advocating a thoughtful, simple existence or simple habits. I've a great
many friends who thrive in environments like that and I have nothing but
respect for them because they actually have to work at it. I'm talking about
the kind of “simple” that would describe the only diet a person would even
consider trying because the other ones are too hard.
Thanks for reading!
Brilliant! Thanks for the great, thought provoking post. In a recent conversation with a well-known simplicity guru, I came away with thoughts similar to yours, especially the “simplicity can make you lazy” or at least, appear that way. Great work!
Thanks and best wishes,
Tara
Thanks for the kind words Tara, and thanks for reading!
You called me out. I am the person who would defer to said orangutan to assemble my IKEA furniture! Joking, of course. Yes, simplicity has made us lazy. Expecting someone else to figure it all out and give us the cliffnotes to life has become a national pastime. What's the cure for this laziness/sense of complacency? Not sure there is one. As you so eloquently state, I think we're screwed.
Boy, there's an eye-catching title for any simplicity fan out there
One of the biggest themes in my life right now is the pursuit of simplicity, but I'm actually in total agreement with you on this point, Brett. People sometimes equate “simple” with “easy,” which is not at all what striving for simplicity is about.
I wrote a post a few weeks ago titled “3 Unexpected Truths of Simplicity.” One of those truths is: Behind simplicity, there is always complexity. My argument is that simplicity comes from a mastery of complexity, not by pretending complexity doesn't exist. As you rightly point out, even blinking your eyes is a complex physical process – but it feels simple to us because our brains have acquired an effortless mastery in coordinating countless nerves and muscles to perform such an action.
Technology is the same way. Sending an email to someone halfway around the world is “simple,” but only because engineers and programmers and visionaries have learned to create and control the complex networks that make email possible.
In my opinion, pursuing simplicity is not about turning our backs on clutter and complexity and pretending they don't exist; it's about learning to bring complex things under our control, learning to understand and master them, until they are no longer complex to us. And as you point out, to do that, we need a healthy respect for all the work that goes into mastering a technology, instead of taking it for granted in the name of a “simple” life.
Can somebody read this article for me please… Wheres my automatic text-to-speech reader ? jk
Great article ! Seriously. I was thinking along these lines today, remembering how when I was a kid figuring things out actually made me curious, knowledgeable and being able to solve great deal of problems. It helps to discover things out, which means if you make a box for someone to fit in, you've got to make some room where that someone could express him or herself, room to move, room to explore. When everything is laid out for you, you dont have that opportunity.
I'm not sure when the last time was when I didn't do something because it was too hard or complicated. I usually just avoid things that I don't want to do and leave it at that (although maybe unconsciously I do think it is too hard or complicated).
I definitely agree that we have been raised in a very privileged society, and the little devices we use throughout the day have very often been simplified for convenience – but do we need to know more or less than our hunter-gatherer ancestors? I would say we need to know more. Things are “easier” from a labor standpoint, but kinda more complicated too.
But ultimately I agree that our society has fostered laziness and apathy, and it is very much do to the types of things you describe. Great post!