It's Not Exactly Complicated

The assembling of the Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial jet, is nothing more than the performance of a million or more, individual and relatively simple tasks.

The work appears complicated because of its breathtaking scale but it is, in fact, simple.

But then again, not. Put any of those tasks under a microscope and you will find a dizzying array of complexity, such as the elegant angles of the wings that have to be just so, or the intricate machinery housed in the engines.

Nothing here can be strictly this way or that. Nothing can be strictly simple. Nothing can be strictly complex.

Things are of mixed quality—this and that, at the same time. This way, our labels start to lose their meaning and things, appearing separate, start to merge into one another, becoming essentially the same.

Energy is matter. Matter is energy. Simple is complicated. Complicated is simple. All that changes is our point of view—one being no more right or wrong than the other.

Any work before you that seems insurmountable can be broken down into smaller, simpler pieces. It is one foot in front of the other. One day at a time. At times, one breath at a time.

In so many ways, all we ever have is one thing to do. The thing in front of us.

And that thing, whatever it is, can be the simplest-yet-most-complicated thing there is to do depending on the level of our trust, which is to say—courage.