I want to thank you for what you have done for me.  Since I have started Moore than meets the Eye I have been blessed by my quest.  It is truly a wonderful thing to go through life looking for the good and the positive side of things.  When you are always searching for the beautiful, unique and extraordinary you are constantly surprised at how many times you find it right in front of your eyes.  Many times I have traveled for hours in search of just the right photo to illustrate something, only to return home and find it in the driveway.

        I have a tendency of complicating the process.  I lose sight of the forest because of all the trees in my way.  Too often I overlook the truly wonderful because it is something I see everyday.  Familiarity breeds contempt.  We have become so accustomed to the incredible and used to seeing the miraculous that we hardly even notice them as we walk past.  We have been blinded by our blessings.  Oh, we can still see them; they just don't move us like they use to.  Look around you and notice the stuff piled around you.  Things we once dreamed of having; now lay unused and unappreciated all around us. 

        Look at the people in your life; sons, daughters, loved ones, friends, co-workers and the strangers you see every day.  Day after day we walk past them and seldom take the time to realize just how great they are.  Oh, we still see them, we bump into them, but we simply fail to appreciate them.  We have been blinded by the hectic.  We have become sightless because of our busy schedules.  Perhaps we need to simplify our lives.  We need a childlike simplicity and sense of wonder as we walk through our day.  The honesty of a child has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it; no ulterior motives, no hidden meanings, just an eagerness to enjoy and play with the other kids.

        The secret of true greatness is simplicity.  Nothing is simpler than greatness; without a doubt, to be simple is to be great.  Why are we constantly complicating things?  Why are we failing to enjoy the simple pleasures of our lives?  Why are we force feeding ourselves with diets of the hectic, frantic and the uptight instead of slowing down and savoring the simple delights of our ordinary lives?  Happiness is a choice; choose to enjoy the blessings of a simple life.

Something to think about:

• I simply believe that there is a mystery of the ordinary, that the commonplace is full of wonder, and that this life is different from what we think it is. It is infinitely more subtle, more powerful, more beautiful, more magnificent, more exciting, more humorous, more delicious, and more adventurous than most of us think.

• Knowledge leads us from the simple to the complex; wisdom leads us from the complex to the simple.

• Being brilliant is not making a simple subject complicated; it is making the complicated subject simple.

• All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

• Goodness is something so simple: always live for others, never to seek one’s advantage.

• Be simple; take our Lord’s hand and walk through things.

• The way to happiness—Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry, live simply, expect little, and give much.

• Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.

Thankful for my simple pleasures
Rickey Moore