One of my greatest flaws is that my unrelenting desire for simplicity in my life creates needless, exhausting complexity. It is infuriating how long it has taken me to realize that. I have little tolerance for self-deception, so the fact that this one has existed for decades … ugh, get it together, Liz.

Anyway.

Let’s walk through a hypothetical example to show you what I mean:

• Liz has a feeling. This feeling is new and inconvenient and intense and she doesn’t like it. To feel big, intense feelings about anything (or anyone) is to be out of control, which is a threat my beloved autonomy and independence. Or worse, it makes me vulnerable to someone who can now hurt me, and that also is a big fat "NOPE."
  
  
• Liz, in her infinite, short-sighted “wisdom” sizes up this whole, human, beautiful feeling like a sleep-deprived, detached scientist examining a single-celled organism a microscope. Under her cold gaze, Liz fails to see how this interloper of a feeling fits into her current life in a way that’s easy and seamless — the way life should be, unless you’re an unrepentant drama queen.
  
  
• Liz chooses the path of denial but calls it “maturity” by saying, “The simplest answer is the right one, and this isn’t simple. No thanks.”
  
  
• Liz “moves on” from the feeling (see: “represses” the feeling).
  
  
• Days, weeks, months, or years later, Liz wakes up angry because her life in that particular area is now confusing, hollow, wrong, or otherwise unfulfilling … and she realizes it’s because she didn’t just deal with the seemingly complex (but actually simple) feeling from step one, back when it was manageable. So, now she has to go back and do what she should have done the first time.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Welcome to hell, population me.

But isn’t that how it always is?

We’ve talked about this before — we want things to be harder than they really are. We want things that are simple to be complex, because it gives us an excuse to run, to pass the buck, to insulate ourselves from pain or rejection, to play it safe, to avoid the tough decisions we need to make ... that aren’t that tough, if you think about it.

Sure, you might have to sit with some uncomfortable emotions or drive uncomfortable “We need to talk” conversations, but those are (in the grand scheme of our lives) very short-lived moments.

But our fear of having to live through that discomfort, no matter how fleeting, results in us paying a much steeper cost — regret, lack of fulfillment, and watching others with resentful envy live the lives we want. We rob ourselves of a bright and beautiful future, because we're afraid of a little momentary friction in the present. 

How many of your life’s current “complications” are startlingly simple in their clarity — and their simplicity is what makes them so jarring?

Your truth is obvious.

Your situation could not be more one-dimensional.

Your feeling is crystal fucking clear.

And you’re pissed as hell about it.

This isn’t what simple is supposed to look like. Simplicity is supposed to be neat, tidy, predictable, and (most importantly) controllable. Simplicity is supposed to protect you from risk, from ever having to hang off the cliff of vulnerability, where you have to entrust your heart to someone else in a real and meaningful way.

So, you reject it like a bad organ transplant.

It’s “too complicated.” And the moment anyone gets near that complexity you’ve worked so hard to bury, you react. You push back. And then you repress even more … because that’s healthy.

It’s time to be honest with yourselves, kittens. In your feverish pursuit of simplicity, you’re creating the very overwhelming hailstorm of complexity you are so desperately trying to outrun.

Are you pursuing the “simple” life that’s right for you, or are you attempting to architect a life where you can exert control over every element, so you feel psychologically and emotionally safe? Is that truth or feeling that’s sitting in front of you like a two-ton boulder really that complicated, or is its only crime that it fails your purity test of how you define “simple”?

You’d better figure it out fast.

Even the simplest of emotions or truths are quite demanding — of your time, of your attention, of your commitment — much like a toddler. If you ignore yours for too long, it will expand in size. Its gravitational pull will increase its drag on every cell of your body, without mercy.

And it’s not going away until you do something about it.

Good news, though. It’s not that complicated. It’s actually quite simple. 

🌟 "I really don't want to answer this question." 

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🗣️ What Smart Folks Have to Say

"Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art."  — Mason Cooley

"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality." — Seneca

"The easiest person to deceive is one's own self." — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." — Richard Feynman

"Self-deception is a pessimistic definition of optimism." — Theodor Reik