Simplicity = Happiness

Okay, so I started writing this post yesterday, but my head has been such a rediculous jumble this weekend that I just couldn't bang it out.  Ironically, it's about simplicity and the happiness it can bring to your life.  HA!  The apparent lack of simplicity in my life right now is probably the reason I couldn't get my head wrapped around the concept enough to finish writing about it.  I am in serious need of some more simplicity in my life right now...

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I actually just stopped in the middle of vacuuming my house to write this post.  (Clearly, it was very important.)  As I was vacuuming, I was fuming with frustration over feeling like keeping our house clean is just this horrible, endless battle.  Keeping a four bedroom/three bathroom house clean with two kids, a husband and a dog can sometimes feel like a full-time job.  And, I don't mean to say that I'm the only one who does anything around here.  It just NEVER. ENDS.  I should also mention that my standards of a neat house are relatively high.  I don't like clutter, and I don't like things out of place.  (Yeah, I know...uptight much?  But, that's just who I am.)  While I was wallowing in my self-pity of feeling unable to keep up, a few things occurred to me:

1. The more things we have in our lives, it seems, the less happy we become.  Simplicity really does equal happiness.  At least, I believe this to be true.
2. Having more things obscures the truly important stuff in life.  The good stuff, the real stuff, tends to get lost in the shuffle of all those other things.

Living in this American society, and especially in American "Suburbia", it's so easy to get caught up in "needing" (aka wanting) all of these things.  And, if you don't have them, or at least want to have them, you're sort of...left on the "outside".

If simplicity really does equal happiness, why don't we do more to simplify our lives?

Maybe this is why I love running.  Running, when you get down to it, is pretty simple.  It's just you.  Other than a good  pair of shoes, there's no special gear required (although, I know there's a lot of cool running gear out there), and you can pretty much pick up and do it anywhere. 

I love...

the simplicity of my feet hitting the ground;

right, left, right, left.

 the simplicity of my breath;

in, out, in, out.

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And, that was as far as I got.  Seems as if I was positively longing  for a run, doesn't it?  So, it's Sunday night, and maybe it's because I didn't get out for a run this weekend (and the weather was AWESOME)  that I still feel like a jumbled mess.  I realize that running is becoming more and more a part of who I am, and that when I can't/don't do it, I feel like less of myself.  I'm hoping this week brings plenty of running, and more simplicity...