To be a human being means we are thoughtful by nature. Since we left the trees and became meat eaters our brains have grown and our preoccupation with finding food has taken a back seat to loftier pursuits. Today as a species we do not have to spend all day focusing on shelter, food and basic survival. This is a blessing as well as a curse. We are certainly safer now, healthier now, and technology has made our lives much simpler, but at the same time that we have been released from the shackles of survival we have become chained to our thoughts.

   The two most basic emotions that drive us are fear and love. They both cause us to act in irrational ways and to do things that in hindsight make us question our own sanity. Fear keeps us from accomplishing so much because in fear we can talk ourselves out of attempting things that would improve our lives. With fear we tend to imagine so many different scenarios that could occur we are frozen in place and never move forward. How many times have we committed some error at work, or home, only to have our minds race with the possibilities and consequences that are so far fetched our entire day is consumed with the thoughts of the incident. KISS is an acronym that stands for "keep it simple, stupid." The point here is to keep things simple, do not over think something. When starting a project I have watched many people start listing the problems that may arise during the completion of the project rather than the steps needed to successfully complete that project.

   Too many times when faced with a problem or difficult situation our minds race off to imagine all sorts of negative consequences that may arise as we try to extricate ourselves from it, or solve it. We have the capability to project all of our fears and bad thoughts on to any situation to make it far worse than it really is. It is funny how more often than not we are able to see all of the bad things that can happen and we have great difficulty focusing on all of the good. We can take the simplest of things and turn into one of the most difficult things we may ever face. The truth is if we look back at some of what we thought were potentially the worse things that could ever happen to us, when we look back at the things we thought we could never overcome, or things we were sure would affect us and all of those around us in a bad way for years to come we find that the opposite is true.

    While in college preparing to write my first large research paper my professor asked how many of us had heard of Occam's Razor. Maybe one hand went up. Occam's Razor is a principle that puts forth the idea that when faced with competing hypothesis the one with the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct. In other words, when all else is put aside the simplest explanation is the correct one. When facing a potential problem in life, or having to face something difficult caused by our own mistakes in judgement let us not rush toward some long and drawn out complicated set of events that could occur, but rather focus on the reality of the situation and keep it simple. Our lives are complicated enough without our help. Look at similar events and remember how they turned out. The fact that we are able to take the time to think about a problem is testimony to our ability to stand tall in the face of any adversity. We have faced so many difficulties in our lives that one more minor bump is inconsequential. Think of all of the good things that can come out of something rather than the bad that may come, and most probably, will never happen. I am looking for the good and I am keeping it simple as I start over, over 50.