If you want to simplify your life to more deeply immerse yourself in something that gives you pleasure or something that you love, then go for it. But if you want to simplify your life because you want to retreat or escape what you perceive to be the pressures of life, watch out! If you want to simplify your life because you feel oppressed or overwhelmed, watch out! Life is not simple; it is highly diverse and complex. Look at nature and all of creation; you are greeted with great complexity. You are a part of the diversity that is intended to express the unique person you are. Simplify your life for the wrong reasons and you will find yourself taking care of a partner who becomes ill, or involved in a family feud, or caught up in things you never imagined could fill your time. You are designed to be involved in life. You are designed for diverse experience, savoring life, deepening meaning, and joy –all of your life. The retreat from life that is isolation and disinterest, a slow “unplugging” from the stimulation of “aliveness,” is not how you are made. You are just not created that way. Complexity that is creative, diverse and novel is something the brain and your Spirit needs all the days of your life. Too often the desire to “simplify” is an escape from using your strengths. The hole you create from the motives of escape, withdrawal, and fear will be filled by a tumor, by depression, by becoming ornery and crabby, or by someone else’s problems which you feel compelled to get involved in. Live your strengths. Stay engaged. Flourish.