Simple Living
"Life is not complicated...we make it so."
In his classic - The Story of My Experiments with Truth - Mahatma Gandhi writes about the delights of simple living which combines simple food, daily exercise, minimal expenses etc. His main point - resist temptation and avoid excesses.
'Bapu' as he is fondly called in India, had gone to England in his youth to get an education. Expensive living costs made him scrounge and he came up with various ways of cutting costs and avoiding unnecessary expenditure.
In the process he realised that blissful existence stems from simplicity - think simple, act simple, live simply. Simple as this may sound, I found the thought most profound.
I find that I'm always inundated with options, choices, temptations. It's so hard to resist material cravings for new foods, new bags, new shoes, new clothes, new jewellery - even if you already have a lot.
I spend my money and find that the item I spent it on isn't that useful after all. So, I've devised a few simple rules that I keep in mind every time I'm about to give in to my desires:

- How nutritious is the food? Am I just spending money to grow fat - I find that this thought has kept me off chocolates, pastries and cakes for the longest time.

- How useful is the item? Will I really use it till I feel that every penny was well worth it? Shoes, bags and clothes addiction is a female disease and we are never satisfied with what we already have. I do give in..sometimes. But I ensure that I wear the stuff as many times I can. Just wearing them once or twice is a sheer waste. period. So if something only suits one or at best two outfits, it's out of question.

- Focus. This last one seems strange. But I find that most people who absolutely fail to give into their temptations (aside from those who cannot afford it) have no dominant goal or purpose in life. It's mediocre at best - goals like buying the latest it-bag are NOT COUNTED. The best goals are intangible in essence - doing well in your career, getting a new job, getting yourself in shape, making a relationship work - those are more like it.