Life's not as simple as turning a page

The Boston Heald

Beverly Beckham

People magazine arrived Monday with a cover over its cover. "Special Offer for People Subscribers," it said. "Life is complicated. Simplify . . . Preview 'Real Simple' Free. The new magazine filled with easy and beautiful ways to balance life, home, body and soul."

I will, of course, send away for my preview issue because doing this is real simple. Just pop out the perforated card, drop it in the mail and one free magazine will be on its way. But as for my reading it and entering a "world of uncomplicated living" and finding "actionable solutions" to "streamline the ways" I manage my life?

This won't happen.

Here's what the paragons of pop psychology never tell you: That life is not simple and that having "a chair of your own" or taking "the ultimate bath" won't strip it of its complexities. Life is a constant, non-stop, complex experience. It's a roll of the dice as well as good luck, good genes and good timing.

And that's the rub, that those of us living in this country, no matter what our circumstances, have been blessed with the best of luck and timing. Billions of people born in a different time, a different place, born into war and poverty, never for a single day experienced any of the ordinary riches we experience in our everyday lives.

We hear, too often, it's almost a mantra that these are the worst of times, that we're overworked, overstressed, over our heads. And maybe we are. But it's snowing as I write this and I'm inside, safe and warm. This is a luxury that most of the people who have inhabited this planet never had.

Many of us live like kings. And most of us work not to survive, not to put food on the table, not because if we don't work our children will starve. We work for our creature comforts, our houses, cars, TVs, computers, stylish clothes, gym memberships.

Are we running around in circles? Maybe. McDonald's is testing an electronic pass in Chicago to deliver fast food even faster. This is awful news, another sign of a nation going too fast, critics groan. This is great, another convenience, proponents argue.

Must everything be either good or bad? Can't something just BE?

As hard as we work and as fast as we go, we play and relax that hard and that fast. Restaurants, even in the middle of winter in the middle of the week, are full. Movie attendance is up. We go to ball games and concerts. We fly and drive everywhere.

"Real Simple" suggests that we discover "the rewards of a simpler life."

But what is a simpler life? Having less? Doing less? Working less? Shutting off phones and the radio and TV? Staying home instead of going away?

"It's knowing the power of simple beauty." Yes, well?

It's "taking time to reflect and recharge." And?

There's a street in my town where the houses are bare and shutterless, the lawns thin, the sidewalks cracked. But all summer there were kids riding bikes on those sidewalks, playing hopscotch, selling lemonade, mothers and fathers watching them.

There's another street where the homes have marble pillars, five-car garages and lawns that look like putting greens. But no children played there.

What complicates our lives is that we want to be home with the kids, but we want the big house, too. We want the time to reflect, but not at the expense of a paycheck.

Real simple? Hardly. But then life isn't a one-dish meal.