00:05When I first retired, it was a very busy time.
00:09I was going to learn Chinese.
00:11I was going to learn to play the sitar really, really well.
00:15I was going to mend a whole lot of fences around the place.
00:18I was going to learn how to cook.
00:19I was going to read a book a week.
00:21I had a list of projects a mile long, and surprise, surprise,
00:26somehow I didn't get around to doing any of them properly.
00:29Sound familiar?
00:31I think that at any stage of life, but particularly during our second prime,
00:36I think, we tend to load up our lives with a whole bunch of stuff
00:40that we somehow never got around to doing while we were younger.
00:44Now, one thing has become increasingly clear to me.
00:47It's not that we don't have enough.
00:51I think sometimes we have too much.
00:55Here's a story about that.
01:01An old gardener was renowned for the extraordinary beauty of his fruit trees.
01:06One day, a young woman came to ask him his secret.
01:10The gardener replied, there was no secret, only pruning.
01:14Each year, the gardener cut the branches that would bear no fruit.
01:18Those growing in the wrong direction, stealing light from the others.
01:22Fewer branches, but more beautiful and more abundant fruit.
01:26The young woman asked if it wasn't a shame to cut so many branches.
01:30The gardener smiled.
01:31What seemed like a loss was actually a gift.
01:34Each branch cut gave its strength to those that remained.
01:39The tree lost nothing.
01:40It concentrated everything.
01:42Our life is like this tree, without pruning.
01:46It grows in all directions, scattering energy into branches that bear nothing.
01:51We carry commitments that take our time without nourishing us.
01:55Possessions that take our space without serving us.
01:58Thoughts that take our attention without enlightening us.
02:03Simplification is this necessary pruning.
02:06The act that allows what truly matters to flourish.
02:10It's not an amputation, but a liberation.
02:13Not an impoverishment, but a concentration of resources towards what bears fruit.
02:19There is in modern life a silent accumulation that occurs without our noticing.
02:25Objects pile up in our closets.
02:27Commitments stack up in our calendars.
02:29Worries multiply in our minds.
02:32We add ceaselessly.
02:34One more responsibility.
02:36One more possession.
02:37One more activity.
02:38As if life's riches were measured by its clutter.
02:42And then one day we wake up exhausted.
02:45Overwhelmed.
02:46Unable to say how we got here.
02:48Desperately seeking space to breathe in an existence that has become too full.
02:54This overload is not an accident.
02:56It is the predictable result of a culture that values accumulation in all its forms.
03:03More possessions means more success.
03:06More activities means more life.
03:08More options means more freedom.
03:11But, experience tells another story.
03:13Surplus does not fulfill.
03:16It encumbers.
03:18Pruning requires discernment.
03:20It's not about cutting everything blindly, but about distinguishing what is alive from
03:26what is dead.
03:27What nourishes from what clutters.
03:30What corresponds to our deep nature from what has been imposed on us from outside.
03:35The question isn't what to add to our life, but what to remove.
03:40So that what remains can truly flourish.
03:43Let's take a look around the specifics of mine.
03:44Where are the peers that wanna receive various options дляам.
03:44richlishing rules and encourages them to try and save lives.
03:45What is Spanish-style language?
