I can remember as a kid the anticipation in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas Day. I will be honest; it was a combination of both excitement and fear. Was Santa going to bring me those items I had placed on my list? What was I going to play with first?

Looking back, were those fears and excitement valid? Maybe not, but rest assured those were the simple times and some days, I know that we all wish we were kids again.

Over the past few years, I have joked with my family that I wanted Lincoln Logs that I had when I was a kid. I loved sitting in my floor as a kid creating various houses and buildings out of those logs.

Well, as Christmas Day approached this year, my wife said she could not wait for me to open my gift from my in-laws. I am usually pretty good at guessing what my gifts are going to be. However, I had no clue because I really didn’t mention anything that came to mind that I wanted.

After we opened gifts at our house, we headed to my in-laws to do the same and to eat dinner. All the gifts had been opened but one remained and it was mine. I ripped off the wrapping paper, and low and behold it was two sets of Lincoln Logs.

It immediately took me back to when I was a kid and I am pretty sure my reaction was fitting of an 8 year old kid. It was something so simple yet brought back so many memories as a kid.

That got me to thinking about the simple things and decisions that we had as kids, but as adults we can make complex.

Sometimes, we have all these choices that need to be made on a daily basis that could be personal, business, family, monetary or spiritually oriented.

All too often, as adults we make certain relatively simple decisions extremely overcomplicated. While it is always important to gather and evaluate as much information as possible to make an informed decision, many other ancillary factors filter in and make the decisions much more difficult.

Ultimately, I think we all would gain some benefit from going back to the ‘Kiss’ method. It just might take away some of the frustrations and anxiety that those decisions can cause.

So, in the New Year I am going to tell myself to keep it simple.

 

Josh Morrison is the general manager at The Tribune. To reach him, call 740-532-1441 ext. 16 or by email at josh.morrison@irontontribune.com.