The Beauty of Simplicity

Cutting and pasting.

Unless I am am using the Ctrl+X or Ctrl+V shortcuts in Microsoft Office, this is rarely an activity I participate in.

This afternoon, though, I perused a stack of magazines and searched for my identity - sort of. Tomorrow's culture-building goal is the conclusion that without the identities of the individuals, the team, the group, the family that BUILD is can not be complete. As the teacher, mine, of course, is the example.

For some time, the words that quickly came to mind when I thought about the "personality and character that make up my personality" were passionate, enthusiastic, ambitious, and often, loud. Today, though, I could not get the following phrase out of my head: beauty of simplicity. It is not symbolic of passion or enthusiasm or ambition, and it certainly is not representative of loud. The thought, the phrase, the words in succession, though, do symbolize and represent a pretty intense realization: I do not want those words to define me.

They have in the past, and I recall quite clearly that at those times -whether in the classroom or outside of it - not only was my stress level higher than the summit of Everest, but my effectiveness was compromised as well. The simple things took a back seat to the ambitious goals I set out to reach, and I lost focus of the big picture. The simple, beautiful moments of everyday were covered in fog thicker than that over San Francisco on an August morning.

I was eating a "real California burrito" a few weeks ago with my friend Erik, and he was marveling over the unique shapes and curls of the tortilla chips and devised a plan to meditate on it. Afterward, we went to 7-11 for a Slurpy, a frozen treat he was more than delighted in. During this time, I laughed at him because, of course, there were more important things to be thinking of, more ambitious things to be doing than meditating on fried cornmeal. The idea just seemed bizarre. Instantly, as if he had been waiting for years to tell me this, he said: It's the simple things, Leslie.

Since then, I have not really thought about what he said, but today, when I was searching for my identity in a stack of magazines I would never read - donated by a colleague to use in class - I remembered what he said. As I reflected on the work I do with enthusiasm and ambition for the cause I fight for with passion, the only place my mind could take me was to that phrase: the beauty of simplicity.

Oscar greeting me with a handshake before class, Alvin offering a tissue to Durell and receiving a "thank you," Freddrick eagerly asking if his answer to #1 is correct and gloating that "My Space" is in fact the answer, Natalie proudly telling of her broken heart over a middle school crush in her changing moment...

Venn Diagramming similarities and differences as a get-to-know-you activity, receiving e-mails that say nothing more than "You are a gift," smiles, funny looking magnets, fresh one-dollar bills, curly tortilla chips, 7-11 slurpies.

I think Erik was quite right. Life really happens in the beauty of simplicity.