Last night I realized that my life is very simple. That’s not by chance, but by conscious effort. Life becomes complex all by itself if you do nothi

Be Simple | Matthias Endler

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2024-09-03 00:30:06

Last night I realized that my life is very simple. That’s not by chance, but by conscious effort. Life becomes complex all by itself if you do nothing about it.

One day you’ll wake up and you have a mortgage, 10 on-demand subscriptions, 20 insurances, 1000 open browser tabs, a demanding job and a dog. And when you realize it, you wonder how you got there.

I keep my life simple because I know my time is limited. Time and health are my best proxies for happiness. Simple Doesn’t Mean Boring

Quite the contrary: give me enough time and I find ways to entertain myself. My friends might disagree, but I consider myself to be an introvert. I like to spend time on my own to explore and learn. There hasn’t been a boring moment in a long time.

If life was more complex, that would take away my time, but time is the resource I can’t replenish, so I protect it. How? Mostly by saying NO.No streaming subscriptions. No Disney+, no Netflix. I rarely watch TV anyway.No gym memberships. Just run in the park.No Instagram or TikTok, but part of that is getting older.My shoes are 6 years old. So is my wardrobe.No meetings if possible. I’m the guy who sits at his desk for 8 hours straight, only getting up for bathroom breaks twice.No property; I’m a happy tenant.No commute; I work remotely.

Regarding technology, that means:Even though I’m a programmer, I only have a single screen.I evaluate tools, but I keep the number of tools limited.My editor doesn’t have a debugger.No Notion or Obsidian if a text file + git is enough.I limit the number of browser tabs with an extension. Simple Doesn’t Mean Minimalistic