There’s this two dimensional approach to life that I’ve watched and I’ve fallen into and I’ve wanted to escape.

The best way I can describe it is in accounting terms. In accounting when you’re in profit you’re ‘in the black’ and then you’re making a loss you’re ‘in the red’.

Our lives become this two-step dance between gaining and losing, we work and strive and toil and scramble for our lives to tip from red into black and then they do we are nervous, fearful, anxiously fighting to keep them there.

I’ve felt it most when the goal of my life is to get to this ‘in the black’ place where everything is running smoothly and under control and I’ll reach some kind of inner peace.

I had a job once where the workload was chaotic all the time. Everyone was working to their limit because ‘once we get through this’ we can have a rest. But when one project ended another two had already begun and deeper into the red we all went. Our collective naive belief was that we would be rewarded, in some way, for our hard work with rest…but work simply attracted more work.

Unfortunately this cycle doesn’t limit it’s self to our work places, it spills into our daily lives, our relationships, our minds, our souls…until the striving tightens around our necks like a noose…

I know I’m not the first person to point out this two dimensional culture we find ourselves living in. There are thousands and thousands of blogs, books, magazines, podcasts, Instagram accounts, t-shirts, Pinterest boards and websites all about how to escape the evils of this world and find a more authentic, vulnerable, real, simple, stripped back way to live.

Actually, it’s more widespread than that, it’s now in vogue to declutter your life and practice gratitude while nourishing your body and your soul.

Quickly the lines blur, the authentic becomes plastic.

We crop and filter our lives to appear more vulnerable, more simple, more grateful than we really are. The decluttered lifestyle has become a complex maze.

All I know is that I want to side step living my life in the black and the red. I understand that in order to do this I will need to have a shift in my perspective. It’s more an inner journey than an outer journey, hence the tools of vulnerability, simplicity and gratitude.

But I want to truly escape the black and red for a life in the yellow. A rich, true, deep, satisfying life with roots deeper than a gratitude post on my Instagram or a house that looks like it belongs on Pinterest.

In this space I hope my words can be raw, unpolished, as I untangle my thoughts and discoveries around living my life in the yellow in a black and red world.

If you’re looking for guidance or some sort of guru you’re definitely in the wrong place. I don’t have any answers, just bags and bags of questions and a deep desire to live the life I was divinely created to live.

[Art by My Bodi Art]