Really, it's not. Simple is the opposite of complex; easy is the opposite of difficult.
For example, on Monday I help friends prepare concrete to lay the floor in the house they are building. The recipe for concrete is very simple:
- 4 buckets water
- 40 shovels of gravel/sand
- 2 35kg bags lime
- 20 shovels of gravel/sand
- Extra water as necessary
- Let the mixer turn until the right consistency has been achieved
- Pour into wheelbarrows and dump the concrete into designated spots.
Sounds simple, right? But do that 25 times and you find it's not easy.
No, given how after this I fell asleep at 9pm on Monday and was a zombie all day yesterday (hence no post the past few days), prepping concrete is not easy.
So why did I do it? I mean, I'm the Easy Life Evangelist. Why do something that isn't easy?
Because I want physical activity to become easy.
In my upcoming nomadic life, I'm going to be working hard five hours a day. In many cases the work won't be simple either. Pruning trees or building a dry stone wall sound simple, but I'm sure they are very complex tasks.
I don't mind that. In fact, I quite like complex. I don't like difficult.
I've made a choice of lifestyle. I'm not going to need much. To most people's way of thinking I'm going to be living a very simple life. I don't care about that. I want an easy life. So instead of changing my lifestyle, I'm going to change my body and my endurance, turning difficult into easy.
Plus I'll end up having a kick-ass body.
Someday Lessons:
- Don't confuse easy with simple; easy can be quite complex too.
- Your life may detour through difficult before reaching easy.