I've just finished reading a book entitled, "Tis a Gift to be Simple: Embracing the Freedom of Living with Less" by Barbara DeGrote-Sorensen and David Allen Sorensen. This book was given to me as a 'secret sister' gift about two years ago by someone whom I would have thought didn't know me very well but, as it turns out, hit the nail on the head. I found it recently when I was rearranging some books on a shelf and decided that it was a very timely topic for me and indeed it was. I've given quite a bit of thought to the idea of living a simpler kind of life over the past year or so.
Truthfully the thinking has been going on longer than a year but the serious thinking started in winter during a few particularly cold, snowy and treacherous commutes to and from work. As I mentally argued with myself about the fact that I was attempting to drive 30 miles to work in a snowstorm or on slippery roads, "Nothing about accounting is THIS important," I told myself, I felt a desperate need to make a change. Something had to give in my life and my lifestyle; I just hoped it wouldn't be that I would give up my life trying to get to the office in bad weather. It was around that time that I learned how to take the bus to work. Learning to take the bus may sound strange considering that I took the city bus to school from fifth grade through college but that was when I lived in the city; living out here in mostly rural Ozaukee County doesn't offer the same ubiquitous transit system that living in Milwaukee offered. Nor do the Ozaukee buses run as long or as frequently. Therefore, learning was required. For example, not every bus goes back to the stop where I left my car that morning. I only had to be burned by that lesson once. Also, the last pick up from my stop at the end of the day is 5:30pm. In my world, that's still fairly early. There have been many frantic runs from my desk to the busstop while simultanously putting on my coat or shoving my laptop in the case because I still had work to finish. Missing that last bus would make for a very miserable night.
So I learned to take the bus and I've gotten pretty good at it. I try to take the bus to work more than I drive my car which saves 60 miles of gas, wear and tear each day I do so. I read on the bus, respond to e-mails, sometimes I make to-do lists, sometimes I pray and/or listen to worship music, and sometimes I just look at the window because I don't have to worry about the traffic. It does take a bit longer than driving... a guaranteed hour each way by bus versus about 40 to 50 minutes by car during rush hour... but I think my relative lack of stress while riding the bus makes up for that in some ways.
I feel as if taking the bus was step one in my pursuit of a simpler life and my latest effort, working from home at least once per week, is step two. This one hasn't been going as well. My boss and my boss' boss are all for it. They've encouraged me to work from home but it's more difficult than I thought it would be. Part of the problem is what I call the "you're home, let's talk" syndrome. My husband starts his job at 11am and ends about 8pm so when I get up and start working at 7am and he meanders over to whatever room I've ensconced myself, he wants to talk about things on his mind or tasks on his lists or other matters that are not work related. I will indulge him for awhile but then I gently remind him that I have work to do and he'll apologize and only interrupt me about five more times before he leaves for work, usually with, "Sorry, one more thing..." as his introductory phrase. He's a love.
Another, and more troublesome, part of the problem is the fact that it's very difficult to do my job without a number of references and resources that are kept in very large, three-ring binders stored in my file cabinet. Most of the documents contained in those binders are also available to me on my laptop but I often have to reference more than one at a time. I've tried bringing them home; it requires a suitcase with wheels and a telescopic handle. Furthermore, when I work from home I am working over the company's virtual private network (VPN) which bogs down during certain hours of the day or on snow days when the entire Midwest region is working from home and sucking up all the bandwidth the VPN can manage. I still make the effort, however, and I've learned to save a working copy of the file to my local drive so I can avoid the delays. Just another of the many little tricks I've learned in my quest to simplify my life.
I plan to continue the effort to work from home at least once a week. Perhaps I can even try twice per week if I can iron out all of the wrinkles. So now I am trying to think ahead to the next change I will make. I think there are a number of drawers, cabinets and closets that need to be ruthlessly cleared out and de-cluttered; but then I must decide what to do with all that stuff.
Who knew that simplifying life could be so fraught with complications?
