Today’s insight journey led me to the idea that sometimes a nice trip to Mayberry is in order. If there’s a constant in this world it’s that trends toward increasing levels of complication have become the norm.
Things that were once simple and required only a modicum of effort have now been morphed into tedious, hierarchical tasks that often require expert-level planning and a tiered fiscal budget in order to pull off.
Carefree and lighthearted have given way to panicked and onerous, and family and community have been lost to solitude and an anxious awareness of being untethered.
But it hasn’t always been like that. There was a prevalence of simplicity, straightforwardness, and unity that used to be our default. We strived to live the best lives we possibly could while still valuing and guarding the familiar blessings life afforded us—loved ones we could spend time with over a nice, home cooked meal, peaceful greetings extended to strangers we actually made eye contact with when encountered on the street, business owners who honored their patrons with an underlying focus on being neighborly rather than solely banking as much money as possible.
Sure, we’ve all heard some of our older friends and family, and the woman down the block who has become the unspoken honorary mom to everyone in the neighborhood saying things like, “In my day, things were less convoluted—we said what we meant, meant what we said, and we followed through,” or “Back in the day, we actually spoke to people face to face, treated everyone we encountered like family whether we knew them or not, and we valued each other’s physical presence more than some device we could hold in our hands.”
Like me, you might have brushed their statements off as musings from an antiquated time, but now, I’m recognizing the wisdom in them more and more. Mayberry might have been simple, even a bit cookie-cutter in its flamboyance, but I venture to think their lives held a lot more peace than most nowadays.
I know that Mayberry was a fictional place, but even fictional places are often based, at least in part, on something real. And I’ve encountered places that lean more towards Mayberry than the big urban metropolises that many of us live in, and I’m guessing some of you might have, too. And there was an extra bit of life there, a life that many of us are, if we’re truthful, trying to get back to.
So, when this life with all of its complexities and conundrums becomes a bit too much, maybe we can balance it all out by adding our own bit of Mayberry into the mix, just maybe. Be blessed. #lovebythedrop
love by the drop 