I wish Simple would be Simpler

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Have you ever wished the fantastic world of Narnia stretched out behind the door of your wardrobe, or if you don’t have a wardrobe, that a magical door would appear in your closet, or that you just need to run fast enough towards a wall on the platform to immerse yourself in another, magical land?

The world is somehow getting too cramped here right now. Too monotonous, too serious, too hateful, and it seems to take the air out of the little bubble I chose to live in. There simply has to be more than what’s here right now, at least that’s what I have been hoping for.

However, I quickly realized that behind the door of the wardrobe, there was only a huge chaos of unfolded clothes waiting, and the wall of the platform was covered by a group of 17-year-old hipsters who were playing the latest hit of a band I never heard of.

Another solution has to be found in order to discover a world, or at least another side of this world, the answer to all our fears and dreams. Travel!

I did and I became me.

I have been so fortunate in my life. In my career, working as a translator and interpreter, I saw the world and got paid to do so. Traveling to foreign countries, and unfamiliar cultures. Setting out to meet strangers and listen to their stories, tales that are so different from our own and yet so often they feel familiar. As if we would all be the same, even if we seem so different at first glance.

When traveling, we meet people who have no idea about our lives, and quite often they probably yearn for it because they don’t know how cramped everything in our lives is.

Traveling changed my outlook and it changed me as a person. Who I was meant to be I found out in countries far from where I was born.

I looked at so many people, stared at the faces in silent, unobserved moments, and wondered what these eyes had already seen. Did these people know how much I envy them? Because they looked so satisfied. They were so happy with what they had, so content with their lives -even if it was just ridiculously little (in my eyes.)

It’s all so simple. So simple. And yet it works. The small hut from which only water, beer, and coconuts are sold. The shop whose opening hours depend on how much the saleswoman is in the mood at the moment. The unregulated traffic, without helmets and without shoes, in which nothing happens. Confidence is based on the elements of nature and is therefore so much more natural than the bureaucratic construct of the religious communities based on where I come from. The small temple made of dark stones in the front yard that gives hope. So much nicer than the “No Trespassing” sign on the meticulously mowed lawn in front of the houses in our world. So much more sense. So simple!

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Happiness needs so little and dissatisfaction so much. There is so much in our world. People have so much, so many things, so many rules, so many obligations, so many plans and so little time.

So little time for the things that really matter. To talk to each other -to think. To cultivate your own little garden in your heart. To let yourself drift.

To live experiences that you can’t read about in books and no influencer on Youtube screams in our faces at half past seven in the morning at breakfast. Adventures, so simple, that no one can tell us about them, only we can experience them ourselves.

Moments when time stands still and belongs only to us. Moments so beautiful that they overwhelm us. Let the tears come. Although nothing is actually happening right now. Finally, nothing happened.

And everywhere we go, and then leave at some point, we leave a piece of ourselves behind. A piece of us stays in this place forever. It is preserved at the moment. We have to leave it there, as a pledge, as a promise that one day we will come back. And, when we come back, we may be horrified to discover how strange this piece is to us all of a sudden because we haven’t been the same for a long time. At the same time, we will be amazed at how much new we bring with us and how much old is no longer there because we left it somewhere else. Somewhere where we might not even find it anymore but that would be perfectly okay.

And, if you have found the place where your heart does not beat wildly, but vibrates calmly and gently, then this may be the place for you. Maybe this is the place that’s right for you. We all have the privilege of spending the limited time we have on this earth where it feels right. Our roots, which bind us so tightly to our neatly paved road, exist only in our heads -but our heart has wings and they can carry us to where we want to be. These are our drive that helps us live our lives in a way that is right for us.

It’s madness to have an entire planet on your doorstep and only move within a radius of 100 kilometers. We so often long for another world, but we don’t even know the same world. We only know our own, ridiculously small biotope of life and think that everything is here. There is almost nothing here. We only occupy such a small, microscopic part of this earth and think that this is the world. We become a lot more humble when we realize what minimal part of the world we call our lives.

But there’s so much more out there. So much more in less. A less, which is actually everything. It just takes a little courage and a little heart. Then the roots can be separated with a small movement. If the heart then finds a place where it wants to stay for a while, then it can simply replant the roots. And release them again as soon as it’s time to move on.

That’s why I am an Austrian-American, that’s why I always be simple. Simple works better for me.

I just wish simple would be simpler at times.