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Keep It Simple

HIROTO, Yuki (Matsue National College of Technology)

We often hear the phrase – keep it simple. Everyone nods. It seems that everyone agrees. But reality is very different. Everyone might agree but how many people really keep it simple?

Modern life is very difficult because everything is so complicated. In my speech today I will give you some examples from our daily lives. I hope to persuade you that we would be more relaxed, successful and creative people if we could learn to simplify.

My first example is our living space. In developed countries people have many possessions but we keep on buying more. Our rooms are full of useless items. Please imagine living in a room that is so crowded, there's hardly any room to move. I am sure you have all seen rooms like this. Your consciousness would be disturbed, and it would become difficult to find things or to clean. Even though, there might be some beautiful object, it won't be noticed because of so many other extraneous things.

Now please think about a traditional Japanese room. It is a very calm and peaceful place. There's almost no furniture and very little decoration. Of course it is good to have pleasant things to look at, but the traditional Japanese way is to have only one or two decorative items in a room. Then their beauty can be appreciated.

What about a very modern interior? It will have a lot in common with traditional style. There will not be many colours. There won't be much furniture. There will be one or two very beautiful things and that's all.

And then my second point is about noise. If we think about it there is a lot of noise in our lives. Televisions, music players, mobile advertisers, traffic, electronic beeps, lift doors opening and shutting…the list is endless.

Our brains are receiving audio signals from everywhere. And this noise may keep us from concentrating. But I don't mean we must remove all sounds from our lives. Perhaps if we did that, we would feel uncomfortable. I have never experienced a life with no noise at all, but I have heard that when people from the city go to the country to stay, they feel strange because it is too quiet. They say they can't sleep.

A lot of noise may be bothersome. But total silence also makes us nervous So what's important is the choice of sound. For example wind or waves or our favorite music.

Thirdly I want to talk about communication. I said that our brains are overloaded with audio signals but they're also overloaded with excess communication. All around us, people are telling us things that we don't need to know. This might be in advertising or daily conversation or just gossip. Of course, when we receive information from our teachers, we probably need to know it. But maybe this is one problem with modern learning. We're getting so much data, that our brains don't know the difference between useful and useless information. The things we need to absorb into our brains are mixed up with the useless information from modern life.

I could give you other examples like colours or images, but I hope I have already proved my point.I hope you can agree that there is too much of everything in modern life.

Let's look at the other side. Gandhi was a great leader and a great thinker. He was born into a wealthy family and he became Prime Minister of India. But, when he died, he owned only a few simple items. A pocket watch, a pair of glasses, a food bowl and a pair of sandals. As Gandhi's power and influence grew his life became more and more simple. But when Gandhi talked about simplicity, he did not mean poverty. He meant a voluntary simple lifestyle without hoarding, and consumption only of what was really necessary.

Even though, to be honest, I don't think any of us could live as simply as he did, I believe there is a good message here.

So I try to simplify my room by taking out things I think are useless because they disturb my ability to concentrate. Extra things are really annoying. After I've cleared all the clutter from my room, it has a peaceful and creative atmosphere. A simple environment creates many possibilites. It makes me feel that I can do anything.

It's important to keep it simple. This means eliminating the things we don't need – from our living and working space – both our physical space and our minds.

Why is it important to keep it simple?

Well, one point is that we will use fewer resources. That will be good for the environment.

Also, as I said at the beginning, we will become more relaxed, successful and creative people.

Our modern world has many problems. We need creative solutions. I believe these solutions are more likely to come, if we can learn to keep it simple.