Simplify

“The web and the physical world are plagued with abundance―people need help sorting through all the good and bad stuff out there. The tyranny of choice is causing major psychic pain and frustration for people.”

Jason Calacanis, Internet entrepreneur 

     Although it is certainly more of a first-world problem, it is nevertheless a problem: Too many choices, too much of almost everything. Now add to the mix the real possibility of widespread “fake news” and political “doublespeak” and “alternative facts” (!) and it really gets challenging. It seems the complexity of life increases exponentially, while we amble along at the same old rate, the pace of human beings, with just so much time and energy. 

     It’s one thing if your challenge is at the coffee shop where you’re offered choices that you’ve never heard of and in which you have no interest. It’s another when it concerns an issue you’re trying to understand in order to determine how to live your life or what to believe.

     I believe now more than ever, we need to simplify. It’s time again for Occam’s Razor. William of Occam was a 14th Century Franciscan logician. His principle states that “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” or, to give it its practical meaning: “If you have two equally likely solutions to a problem, choose the simplest” or even better, “Keep things simple!”

     Let that become our motto, the standard which we apply to all of life, beginning right now. 

     I’ll say no more. 

(But I’ll begin to think of ways I can apply it. I hope you do too.)