Jimmy Beh

Some of my favorite commercials of all time were created by the Kona Brewing Company. While I was living in San Diego, the Big Island based brewery had two local Hawaiian bruddahs poke fun at the strange but normalized customs of the ‘mainlanders’ (i.e. the continental, American business culture). One of these ads was called “single-tasking.” In the Single-tasking clip, the brothers ask why the mainlanders have so many meetings where they are texting and sending emails– busily not paying attention to either of the things they are supposedly doing. The brothers then suggest that the mainlanders should try ‘single-tasking.’ Next, they take a brief pause to appreciate their Kona beers before taking a sip. At the end of each commercial they say, “One life, right? Don’t blow it. Mahalo.” 

While these Kona Brewing commercials certainly did their primary job of making me want one of their beers– they also raised a question for me. Why do we make our lives overly complex? Asked another way– what does it mean to simplify our lives?

There is no arguing against the complexity we find in our existence. Whether it is the synapses in our brains, the cells in our body, or the diversity of life and landscape. We inhabit a beautiful world that is innately complex, chaotic, and intricate. However, finding beauty in complexity is not what our Hawaiian friends are calling our attention toward. They are calling our attention toward how our normalized attachment to complexity, in our daily lives, is probably a major source of our unhappiness.

There is another Kona Brewing Commercial called ‘Sad Hour.’ In this ad, the Hawaiian brothers point out how strange the term ‘happy hour’ is in our culture. They suggest that instead of having one happy hour, we should have one sad hour– and the other twenty-three can be happy hours. — “One life, right? Don’t blow it. Mahalo.”

While twenty-three happy hours sounds pretty good if you ask me, I want to build on these cultural critiques in a way that is not about optimizing happiness. Don’t get me wrong– happiness is awesome– but I don’t think the pursuit of happiness really gets us any closer to simplicity or a well-lived life. Sorry, Thomas Jefferson…

The reason I do not see happiness as our goal is because the concept of ‘pursuing happiness’ creates an illusion that happiness is outside of us. That happiness requires the right actions, possessions, or successes in order to be achieved and felt. Think about your own pursuit of happiness. What happened after you achieved a goal that you identified as being a step toward being happy? Perhaps excitement… some sense of fulfillment or joy– but how long did it last? It can be frustrating and confusing why the sensation of happiness can be so fleeting. Often the reason is because what you felt was not actually happiness, but the excitement of having your desires met. We are quick to confuse happiness with pursuit of short term pleasure.

Therefore, it seems that a more sustainable path toward living a good life– sustainable happiness– comes through embracing simplicity. The best way I understand this concept of simplicity comes from the theologian Stanley Hauerwas. He says, “ if we are to live lives of simplicity, the challenge we face is not that our world has grown more complex, but that our lives are increasingly compartmentalized.” This seems right. In a sense, embracing simplicity is the daily habit that provides the foundation for the virtue of Constancy. 

The embrace of simplicity– of non-compartmentalization– is not a hall pass for a total disregard of the other as we barrel our way toward individuality. We do not sacrifice our relationships in order to be ourselves, but rather we must figure out how to be ourselves amidst our relationships– and without preventing others from doing the same. This requires small, daily acts of courage. Zeno, the founder of Stoic Philosophy, says, “well-being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing.” It is worth keeping in mind that this form of courage is not ego-centric– which is what makes it so hard. For me, this daily courage deals far more with being open to my emotions, facing pain or discomfort, or letting go of my fear of rejection. 

A useful way to reflect on this path is to think about whether or not you are the same person in private as in you are in public. Hauerwas says that if you ever find yourself saying, “This isn’t really me,’ that’s an indication that the simplicity, which should characterize your life, is in jeopardy.” It is worth saying that there is a difference between ‘who you are’ and ‘how you are.’ There are situations we may find ourselves in that call for different forms of communication or relationship – or times we are frustrated, fearful or angry. We should not go home at night beating ourselves up because we were not our perfect selves at all moments of everyday. Instead, what Hauerwas is talking about is that we must let go of our illusion that who we are in one facet of our life will not affect the other. This is not a drill to create moral shame for us. Instead, it is a practical method of reflection that can help us see where we struggle to be ourselves in our daily lives.

I think this is so hard for many of us because it has nothing to do with being right. There is no true certitude in this endeavor. Change is our only constant in life and we must change and grow as individuals. The hope is that we take the time to understand who we are on an individual level and who we are in relation to the world we find ourselves in– and to be true to that throughout the changes. 

So as we move through the weekend and into next week, I hope we are able to resist this temptation to compartmentalize, and are better able to consciously embrace a moment or two of courage where we insist on being ourselves. And I hope we are able to find lasting satisfaction in becoming more at peace with who we are in relation to the divine and the natural world around us. In the end, you are not going to ‘blow it’ as long as you are sincere about embracing simplicity in your life.

“One life, right? Don’t blow it. Mahalo”