I'm struck by how complicated life can get. We have a propensity to take something really simple and complicate the hell out of it. Harrison Ford falls in love with Anne Heche in "Six Days and Seven Nights". Ford is a small plane pilot in the Carribean Islands. He crashes his airplane and falls in love with Heche. Nobody, he repeats nobody is going to screw up the simple life he has womanizing, drinking and flying around the islands. Nobody until Anne comes along. The last scene shows Ford surrendering to her charm admitting that he will return to New York with her and he wanted to "complicate the hell out of his life". No Harrison! No! No! No! It is the wrong life lesson.
Grasshopper No. 4 picked up on the "simplicity idea" with his Saturday morning football team. When the team went from remembering 15-20 plays down to 3-4 plays, the team did better. Yep, they did it simpler.
I was going through some papers the other night and I came across the purchase of our first cottage. You've heard the story about how we bought it on sight and sealed the deal with a handshake. The owner was Mr. Ray Mallman and he believed in keeping his word. You can't get much simpler than a man's word and a handshake.
I have mentioned Garrison Keelor, host of "Prairie Home Companion". It is a Saturday night radio show out of St. Paul, Minnesota. The charm is that he makes reference to his growing up in a simple farm community in Minnesota. It makes you yearn for the simple life of a farm boy. The biggest problem Garrison refers to is removing piers on Lake Woebegone (I haven't checked to see if there really is a lake by that name) at the end of the year. He refers to characters constantly from home where "women are strong, men are handsome and all children above average". Excitement was the county fair and a barn-dance Saturday night. Simple was good.
Then I watched a one hour TV special on Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world. Despite all the issues that go with money, he is really quite simple. He likes cherry cokes. I like cherry cokes. He likes cheeseburgers. I like cheeseburgers. He likes Dairy Queen shakes so he bought the company. I like Dairy Queen products but I have to pay market value. Okay! Okay! He can do things that I can't do. He has lived in the same nice but simple home for 48 years. He knows what makes him happy and he doesn't apologize for it. A nice afternoon is sitting at home in his sweatsuit with a bowl of popcorn watching Nebraska beat Texas. Hey, I like to do that.
Buffet's formula for success is "do what you love and do it well". The word simplicity isn't in that success statement but it is implied.
So Grasshoppers my advice is to "strive for the simple life". Sometimes it seems hard to do but with a little practice, you'll find it is really quite simple.
Love,
Dad