The light bulb in my dryer burned out months ago. Since I have never seen where the light bulb is located and never had to change the light bulb in a dryer before, I expected that changing it would be difficult and complicated. So I put the task of changing the dryer light bulb on my list of “difficult things to do that will take a lot of time that I will take care of when I have time to do them.” Every time I opened the dryer and thought about changing the light bulb my heart would sink. I had visions of having to remove the drum, and perhaps even taking the dryer apart to get this done.
Then, last week, after finishing the laundry, I had a feeling that changing the light bulb just couldn’t be that complicated. So I got a flashlight and stuck my head in the dryer to look around. It didn’t make sense that something that would have to be changed somewhat regularly would be so hard to access. I ran my hand around the inside of the dryer drum by the door and there, at the top, was the light bulb. A few quick turns and the burned out light bulb was in my hand. I went to the hardware store, showed a clerk what I needed and for $3.00 I got two replacement bulbs. Installing the new light bulb took less than a minute and now the light in the dryer works.
I was so convinced that this was going to be hard that I didn’t even think about looking for an easy solution earlier. Then the situation shifted from being a minor inconvenience (I really didn’t need to see into the dryer anyway) into something that was beginning to cause me acute distress every time I thought about it. Removing the old bulb and installing the new one, minus the time spent driving to the hardware store, took less than two minutes. Why did I make it so hard and cause myself so much distress over it? We do this when we allow our assumptions about how complicated things will be to override the possibility that they can be easy.
We’re living in such important times now and we have a great deal of responsibility to hold energy for the changes that are happening on the Earth. So much so that we can tend to over-think, over-dramatize and over complicate the process. What if, instead, we just assume that it will be easy? For example, how many times today did you think about the earth spinning on its axis? How many times did you think about the gravitational pull of the moon on the earth, the sea and on your body? Did you ever even think that the sun may not rise tomorrow? All of these are highly complex and yet very simple processes that occur every day. They’re important to us, without them we would all cease to exist. But they are part of the flow of life, a process that we are also part of. And when we over-think, over-dramatize and over-complicate things, we step out of this flow and make the process so much harder than it really is.
We don’t need to look for the light, it is always there. We just have to know that it is there and put ourselves in its path when we assume that everything will be easy, effortless and simple. What is the easiest, simplest and most obvious place to find the light, peace, truth and joy we want (by most obvious I mean the one we don’t over-think)? Here is what I learned from my clothes dryer’s light bulb:
1. If the process should be simple, it probably is.
2. The light is probably in the most obvious place, but the most obvious place is not where you might look first.
3. Even the most complex process is comprised of simple, smaller steps.
4. If we are afraid that something will be too hard, take too much time or too much effort, then we’re over-thinking the process.
5. Once we see how simple something is and can do it once, we will never forget how to do it and can apply that learning to everything else.
6. If you look for the light, you will find it. If you look for the problem, you will find that first.
I hope you can use these steps to simplify something in your life that you think is really hard, complicated and time consuming. Assume that finding the light, whatever that means to you, is going to be easy and effortless and it will be.
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Copyright (c) 2013 by Jennifer Hoffman. all rights reserved. You may quote, translate or link to this article, in its entirety, as long as you name the author and include a working link to this website. All other uses are strictly prohibited.
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