No, I’m not going to teach you the best kissing methods. Get your mind out of the gutter! What I’m talking about here is the KISS Principle (aka, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID).
Believe it or not, this is one of the most profound spiritual principles known to mankind. You won’t find a fortune cookie that has better spiritual wisdom than to keep things simple.
In this article, I’m going to teach you how keeping it simple can change your life for the better. All it takes is an open mind and a willingness to let go of what you think to be true about the world, your life, and the path to ultimate freedom.
Don’t Overcomplicate It
I remember standing there, talking to my coworker, just nodding my head with an aloof look on my face. “What is he going on about?” I thought. He just kept speaking about a whole lot of what seemed like nonsense to me, in all honesty.
I thought, “Is there something wrong with me? Maybe I’m just not getting what he’s trying to say.” We’re supposed to be talking about sales and online metrics, and somehow he’s managed to spend 20 minutes talking without saying much of anything at all.
I’m not even trying to be mean here. I literally could not comprehend what he was saying. In my mind, I could have just blurted out the essential point of the matter in one sentence or less.
I almost felt bad as I felt very conscious and aware and yet he seemed to get lost in his own thoughts and had trouble stating his points. He’s even my superior in the workplace. This made me question everything. How come people overcomplicate everything!? Why can’t they just keep it simple!?
We’ve Become So Smart We’re Actually Stupid
Let me ask you, you have two geniuses side by side. In fact, twin brother geniuses. Everything about them is the same: their IQ, physical health, degrees, occupation, you get it, they’re identical in every way. EXCEPT! One takes 3 sentences to answer a question, the other takes one. Who’s smarter? If you said the second, you’d be right.
You see, instead of keeping things simple, we overcomplicate it. It’s the human condition. The human mind loves complexifying, intellectualizing, romanticizing, dramatizing, and philosophizing. Hell, even I do it when I’m blogging.
We are like walking computers. Albeit, ridiculously slow computers from the 1960s that struggle to process and store data correctly. Are we even smart? Our society places so much importance on having high IQs and schooling so we can achieve a high income job, yet we still struggle to answer basic questions.
I don’t know man, if we are at the peak of human evolution at the moment, I don’t have much confidence in the human race. Jokes aside, I can’t blame the human condition for its shortcomings. Going even further, I can’t blame our human minds. They are jumbled with so many thoughts, traumas, fears, desires; it’s a wonder that we can even function properly in the world with a mind that won’t stop talking.
But how did we end up here? How did we get too smart for our own good? The answer lies within.
The Ego Values Thinkingness, While Soul Values Simplicity
Do you ever wonder why, when comparing the simple lifestyle of monks to that of a billionaire who has everything, monks still seem superior in some way? It’s as if they know something the billionaire doesn’t. This isn’t just a media trope; it’s a real phenomenon.
The monk has learned something far more significant than having billions of dollars. He can sum it up in one word: SIMPLICITY. That is beyond the physical realm. Simplicity is a quality of the soul. You, without all the external baggage of being human, are actually quite simple on the inside. The soul, just gets “it.”
What takes the mind days of thinking to develop a probable cause for a problem, the soul can answer in the blink of an eye. The soul can do this because deep down what we’re really after isn’t knowledge, but wisdom.
What is Wisdom?
Wisdom is none other than our own common sense. Common sense tells us things like:
- Don’t walk down that dark alley at night
- Eat your vegetables
- Don’t eat too many donuts in one sitting
- Brush your teeth
- Have manners in public
- Save your money for a rainy day
- Keep your body in shape
- Get to work on time
- Don’t cheat on your partner
- Raise good children
Now, these are oversimplified but you get the picture. Our common sense guides us through life.
Some people actually struggle learning these basic common sense lessons. Others find that some problems are more sophisticated and demand greater care and attention. They also have more on the line to lose if they make a mistake. Let me give you an example of the two:
- Josh Slacker has been late to work 3 times already. Each time, he had been out partying with his friends until the early morning hours. He sleeps through his alarm. When his boss calls, Josh wakes up and tells her he’s sorry he slept through his alarm, but he’ll rush to work immediately. At work, his boss warns that if he’s late one more time, she’ll have to let him go. Josh realizes the lesson here. Much to his embarrassment, it was rather obvious: “Don’t be late to work and don’t stay out late partying when you have work the next day.”
Now a more sophisticated problem:
- Carly Homemaker has a very big family. They have 5 kids and her husband, Jeffrey, is the full-time bread-winner. Carly loves what she does, caring for her kids and providing them homeschooling. However, she also manages the finances for the family day-to-day. Her husband is a big spendthrift who can’t control his spending habits. He also has a drinking problem and gets angry whenever he drinks. When Jeffrey comes home from work, he is tired and doesn’t want to do anything except have a beer and watch TV. Carly realizes the position their family is in and that pretty soon they will run out of savings and won’t be able to afford groceries. The common sense lesson here is: “Sometimes you must overcome your fear of confrontation to address serious problems, especially when the financial security of your family is at stake.”
The difference in the problems here is that some individuals have less complex lessons to learn than others, due to varying levels of consciousness.
Those with higher levels of consciousness have more sophisticated problems to overcome than those at a lower level of consciousness.
If that is triggering. It shouldn’t be. I’d love to have the problems of just waking up on time and having to brush my teeth. As you grow in consciousness, your problems don’t get easier. In fact, they get a lot harder.
But, as you grow in consciousness, you become more competent to handle those problems. Hence the saying, “God only gives you what you need, and not what you want.” At every moment, he’s giving you the very obstacles that need to be overcome, and if overcome, your consciousness will grow. You just have to be aware enough to notice what it is he is trying to tell you.
If you want to keep things simple, Forget The Books
Growing up, I was never into school. I was maybe a C average student in high school and barely a B- student in college. This was only possible because I did all my homework and extra credit opportunities which afforded me the ability to bomb and fail a lot of tests.
Still, I was able to get a job at one of the biggest companies in the world and be a full-time providing father (and no I’m not a “sit on the couch and drink beer” type of dad like Jeffrey Homemaker). I’d say I’m doing better than most my age in a lot of areas of life.
The life I built was solely because I realized one thing; I saw the value in common sense and I did not care about my intellectual capabilities. On paper, my IQ could be 25 for all I know. I’m fine with others perceiving me as “dumb,” but I’m not chasing book smarts. I’m focused on growing my wisdom and common sense.
If I am not improving on my sophistication, my awareness, my intuition, and my inner growth, then nothing matters. I embrace the KISS Principle (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID) wholeheartedly.
You won’t learn common sense through books. Books can give you fun facts to memorize and what the world calls “knowledge,” but they won’t teach you the lessons that only life experiences can give. You have to actually go through an experience, and learn from it, for the lesson to be ingrained in your soul. There’s a difference between knowing about a thing and actually be living proof of the thing.
Common Sense Trumps IQ Every time
If you had to choose between having strong common sense or a strong IQ, I would strongly advise you to choose the former. Common sense may be a better predictor in determining one’s worldly success than IQ.
I often felt like an idiot compared to those who went to prestigious colleges. However, this statistic from Ramsey Solutions made me think differently:
According to Ramsey Solutions’ The National Study of Millionaires, which surveyed over 10,000 millionaires, 62% of millionaires in the U.S. went to public state schools, while only 8% went to a prestigious private school.
Graduating from a state school myself, I noticed my peers and I placed more importance on what we were doing outside the classroom than inside it.
We didn’t have a mentality about being strong academic students. Rather, we wanted to build a fulfilling college experience. I got very involved in extracurriculars like joining clubs, participating in greek life, and playing sports.
I focused more on practical skills like public speaking, networking, practicing interviewing, saving and investing my money, balancing work and academics, building my resume’, and collaborating on projects.
Yeah, my grades weren’t the best, but I lived a lot in such a short span of time! Sitting in class or studying for exams were just a couple of minor aspects of my 20s.
Related: Dating In Your 20s Shapes Your Life More Than You Think
I had experiences not a lot of graduates could say that they had because they spent their time locked in their dorms studying, believing knowledge alone would prepare them for life ahead.
I learned to actually make and manage money from my part-time jobs during college rather than have student loans and graduate with debt I’d be paying off for years.
I stayed up countless hours, not just to study for tests, but also to learn how to socialize at bars and parties, to go to the gym and improve my health, and to ponder the deeper meanings of life.
There’s a lot of wisdom I gained from “living” and, at times, making idiotic mistakes. I learned to navigate life and saw that there wasn’t some formula you can memorize and now you have the answers to the universe.
No, the laws of nature that we operate under are very different. They are chaotic and unpredictable and the only way you can navigate that is with common sense.
Solve every life problem by Keeping it simple
There’s no shortage of individuals out there overcomplicating their life. The best approach is to grow in consciousness and become adept at intuiting the deeper meanings to life’s problems.
Once you find the deeper meanings to life’s problems (ie. gaining sophistication), you become better equipped to handle them. Forget all the intellectualizing or thinking a big problem requires a big answer. Life’s answers are really one fortune cookie after another, they’re simple and enlightening.
One day you’re learning how to get in shape and eat healthy, the next you’re having an existential crisis questioning existence itself. The only thing that is certain is that there is always a new lesson to learn. Whether you choose to keep it simple or overcomplicate it is up to you.
Related: Why Religious Guilt Prevents True Spiritual Progress