simplifying your life

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, the famed Hollywood filmmaker and producer, wore the same thing almost every day -- a blue suit, white shirt, black socks. He wore no jewelry of any kind, not even a wrist watch. His reason was that being simply dressed helped him avoid unwanted distraction. Hitchcock was once quoted as saying,

"I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm."

Western society works hard every day to prevent us from simplifying our lives and to distract us from what we believe to be our important tasks. Television, radio, the Internet, magazines, store displays, families, friends and associations -- all compete for our attention and offer hundreds, even thousands of things on which they want us to focus. The challenge, then, is to first determine what our important tasks are (not as easy as it sounds), and then to do all we can to avoid being distracted from them.

Hitchcock was a master at his craft, most likely because he loved it so much. The secret for him, and I suspect most other wildly successful people, was passion. His passion gave him the courage and discipline to take whatever steps were necessary to simplify his existence to the exclusion of all except the attainment of his goal.

Simplifying your life is not just something you do to create calmness. Sure, that's the immediate payoff, but there's so much more. Once you're calm, you can dream without effort, and easily turn those dreams into goals and plans. Now you're reaching your human potential, and that's what it's really all about.

Blue suit, white shirt, black socks. Simple colors on the outside. A rainbow of possibilities on the inside.