A couple of days ago I wrote a post exploring how the frenetic pace technology seems to cause has driven a need in many to find a simpler life. But, if you read the books and websites and other articles about the simple life, it seems that everyone has a slightly different take on what, exactly, that means.

For some, the simple life takes on a rural, self-sufficient attitude. Growing your own vegetables, milking your own cows, making your own bread and that sort of “granola” thing. Ask anybody that’s gone down that road and I’m willing to bet that they will tell you that while it is often a satisfying life, it is hardly “simple”. There’s a great deal of complexity in managing a farm. Not to mention the need to work outside the home to cover the mortgage, pay the utility bills and so forth.

Others cast the simple life in form of some religous experience. Zen Buddhism, or at the the precepts it teaches is often touted as the foundation of a simpler life. Indeed, a life built on Zen principles can be quite simple. And for many profoundly life changing.

For me, a simple life means a life less hectic, with fewer demands and expectations. A life which I control, rather than always acting in response to what happens around me. Or, perhaps a clearer picture is that I choose the things I respond to and simply let the rest flow past.

I love technology and would not consider giving it up, but at the same time recognize that it is not the answer to managing complexity in life. It may help, certainly, but by itself holds not great power to simplify my world. As I said in the earlier post, technology often heightens the complexity by allowing others to intrude on our time.

But, it is truly neither the fault of technology nor of that other person. It is your fault, and my fault, for feeling that we must answer the phone, that we must check and respond to email or text messages. We are the ones in charge of our lives. It is us who choose to allow those intrusions in our lives. We have but to turn off the phone, shut down the computer, take a walk in the woods to prevent those intrusions from occurring.

I challenge you to look at your life. Define for yourself what a “simple life” means. And then to find the ways to make it happen in your life.