Keep It So Simple – Dan Hansen

We have a way of making growth harder than it needs to be.

There’s an old acronym: K.I.S.S. I learned it as “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

I never liked that version.

After years of being told I wasn’t smart enough, I didn’t need another phrase that used shame as motivation. I had already spent too much of my life believing intelligence had to be proven.

Complicated sounded smart.

Simple sounded like I hadn’t tried hard enough.

I see that differently now.

Complexity isn’t proof of intelligence. Sometimes the clearest sign that I understand something is that I can stop hiding it behind extra words, elaborate systems, or unnecessary steps.

So I’ve given K.I.S.S. a new meaning:

Keep It So Simple.

When I started Morning Pages, three full pages felt overwhelming. The number became another measurement I could fail to reach.

But the value was never hiding in the number three.

It was in returning to the page.

For one person, that return may take three pages. For another, it may begin with three minutes. The practice doesn’t become meaningful because it is intense. It becomes meaningful because there is a way back to it tomorrow.

I’ve noticed the same thing in prayer.

My prayers don’t always need ceremony or polished language. Sometimes I greet the presence I have come to know. I say thank you. I ask what I need to ask.

Then I listen.

Even surrender has become simpler.

I once thought surrender required a dramatic defeat. Now it feels more like allowing. I loosen my grip on the outcome and make room for what is already trying to emerge.

Write.

Pray.

Surrender.

Not as a formula for anyone else. Just as three simple movements that help me return to myself.

I don’t need to master everything before I begin.

I need to make the next honest practice simple enough that I can keep meeting it.