**Easy peasy lemon squeezy.** If you find yourself around children occasionally, you may hear this saying. As adults, we know that sometimes "easy" is harder than a turn of phrase. “Just Do It” is a slogan an empire was built upon. I wager it was not that simple, but the sentiment and attitude are captured well. How many of us would love to have a real “Easy” button like they had in the Office Depot commercials? In my mind, I saw everyone’s hands go up!
If we look around, we will find phrases sprinkled throughout our lives. Lose weight? “Just eat less and exercise more.” Maybe the hint that it is oversimplistic is that one starts the phrase with “Just,” because it’s so easy. Easy is frequently not easy. It can be more difficult, involve, or require elements we may not possess.
The opposite of easy is complex. As we progress through life, adulting seems to make many things increasingly complex. Remember when you first started paying taxes? I used a 1040EZ for my lawn mowing gigs, babysitting, and part-time job after school. One page. Easy peasy. Now it requires a computer program interviewing me with stacks of paperwork. Complexity at its finest. If one looks around their life, they can see complexity wrapping its tentacles around them. Sometimes it is just time and layers upon layers added to things. If you find yourself saying, “Back in my day, it used to be…” maybe you are dealing with something that has become complex. Things change fast.
One of the things I have been focusing on this summer is simplifying. At home and at work, I have been looking at things and asking myself, “Can I do this in a simpler way and get the same results?” Sometimes the answer is yes, and the remedy is fairly straightforward—like clearing the clutter in the storage room. Other things take more time and can’t happen all at once. In other words, it appears easy but has more moving parts in the background than the surface appearance lets on.
Another thing that can make things easier is help. A partner, a spouse, a trainer, an advisor. I was really good at keeping to my exercise regimen with a trainer or a riding partner because if I failed to show up, I was letting someone else down. Going it alone can actually make things harder, not easier. Another example would be taking a long road trip by yourself versus having someone in the passenger seat to chat and pass the time with on the long drive. It is so much easier with someone in the passenger seat!
Easy is not always easy. Complexity seems to increase with age in many parts of our life. Simplifying takes a bit of time, analysis, and sometimes hard decisions. Having help can make all of this easier. Next time, I will share some more of my efforts in simplifying and making investing and financial aspects easier.