The cocktail has long been a symbol of excess and indulgence.

As a cultural icon, the heady drink of liquor, liqueurs, fruit juices, cream or spices, belongs primarily to the world of the rich and carefree, where life is without limits or repercussions.

But as Hollywood starlets fall from grace around us like inebriated dominoes, we have to wonder at the supposed richness of their world.

Rather than an abundance of promise and reward, their lives seem overly complex and unsatisfying.

Achieving the simple life, it would seem, is not about a change of scenery or a quick spring clean of our routine.

It is about removing the unnecessary complexities from our life.

At a recent cocktail party - in which I assure you my behaviour was neither excessive nor indulgent - I also discovered something interesting: that complicating cocktails doesn’t actually improve the flavour.

As the glossy cocktail books with their intricate recipes became spotted and soiled by chunks of fruit and dripping swizzle sticks, I settled back happily with a simple martini.

The trick I decided, as I examined the perfect, plump olive, is to not confuse something fancy with something fulfilling.

When Less is More

We choose to live a rich life, not a complex one.

Edward De Bono, the leading authority in the direct teaching of thinking as a skill, urges us in his book “Simplicity”, to examine the difference between something that is rich and something that is complex.

There is value in both a rich and a simple life. But over-complicating our life adds little value.

Similarly, adding ingredients to the perfect drink simply muddies the waters.

But from a historical perspective that was often the purpose of the cocktail: to add complexity in order to distract or confuse.

During Prohibition in the United States, the art of mixing drinks became more and more important to mask the taste of bootlegged alcohol.

One of the earliest printed use of the word “cocktail” was in an 1806 edition of a New York publication, where the paper provided the following definition to the word “cocktail”:

“Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else.”

Are our lives increasingly rich and full? Or are they becoming so complex that our heads are fuddled and we are confusing a fancy life with a fulfilling one?

A Recipe for A Simple Life

There are three key ingredients to simplifying the life of a complex, cosmopolitan girl:

1. Invest in Experiences

The key is to devote more time to experiencing life, rather than getting ready to live it!

• Buy memories rather than things—the memories of a special time with loved ones will long outlive expensive clothes that may only last a season.
• Forgo the email and drop by a friend’s house or pick up the phone. Face-time provides a healthy alternative that allows us to really connect with other people.
• Simplify your choices—do you really need to think about which of your hundred pairs of shoes you will wear every morning? As De Bono points out, with eleven pieces of clothing to put on in the morning, there are over 39 million possible ways of getting dressed!

2. Streamline your Schedule

The key is to plan for success by booking a realistic number of engagements or activities.

• If every week your to-do list rolls into the next, you are setting yourself up for constant failure.
• Think about the long term impact before you agree to join another team or club. If the thought of losing every Wednesday night for the next ten weeks makes you break out into a sweat, politely decline.
• If your calendar looks like a road accident, book some time for yourself each week and use the time to do something you enjoy, rather than an obligation.

3. Avoid the Drama

The key is to focus your efforts on positive involvement.

• The next time an argument or debate erupts, ask yourself : do I really care? If it’s not going to stop your world, do you need to engage in a potentially heated or upsetting confrontation?
• Stop obsessing over what you should do and what you want to do. Accept that we can’t all behave “perfectly” all of the time and enjoy the pleasures of both indulgence and control.
• Next time your friend starts to complain, resist the urge to jump in with your own hard luck story. You will contribute to the problem by building the negative energy. Instead, listen sympathetically then focus on something positive that can turn the moan into a laugh.

Last night I had to sew a button on to my husband’s shorts.

We are off to a beach-side resort for our anniversary this weekend and the low down, undies-flashing look just won’t cut it.

And so while I was ironing with one hand and cooking dinner with the other, he sheepishly asked me to button him back up.

This should not have been a problem, given that my limited skill extends to this task, except that like all women who have never possessed a sewing machine, I also have never accumulated a sewing box.

I briefly had a sewing box in high school, jammed full of needles, thread, thimbles and buttons. It was one of those cute numbers with a padded paisley cover and a big cane handle. But when my sewing teacher altered my elective for me and sent me down the hallway to an art class (I believe I broke the monthly quota of machine needles in a week) my box did not make the journey with me.

Since then, I’ve kept all of those spare buttons and snippets of beading in plastic baggies in a ceramic milk jug - also ornamental since I don’t make tea…

And so last night, as both I and the empty suitcase yawned in unison, I spent a good hour trying to hunt down a spare button and another twenty minutes threading the needle.

As my cats darted in and out of the needle and thread like kids around a maypole, I finally managed to sew one of my old coat buttons onto my husband’s shorts.

I’m sure it is true that a stitch in time saves nine - but the whole process had me thinking longingly of a staple gun or a piece of electrician’s wire.

Next time, I promised myself, I’ll be far more creative!

A Creative Heartache

A good friend of mine, Julia Sutton, has recently launched a blog called the Sewing Circle, which amongst sharing stories about her heart’s passion, encourages the support of local sewing and craft shops.

I admire both her enthusiasm and her knowledge.

When my Nanna passed away, my connection to this Clever Women’s Business was lost. She was the only one in my family with the magic fingers that could sew, mend, stitch and create all that we could dream - or tear - up.

But as Julia and I chatted about the very real threat to some of the traditional, female-focussed pursuits like sewing, she made a comment that lodged in my own breast like a needle:

In cultures like our own, where people are increasingly time-poor, one of the first things to be abandoned is creativity.

She might as well have told me that life doesn’t really start at forty!

Labours of Love

Yet as I recovered from the implications of her statement, I found it difficult to think of any evidence to refute her claim.

Isn’t it true that in a culture where things seem to be speeding up by the day, we are finding less and less time to devote to our sketch pads, dance classes, journal writing or sewing machines?

Many creative pursuits absorb a lot of time and energy.

Conversely, their value can be difficult to measure in tangible terms.

Any creative soul will speak with pleasure about the process of purchasing the tools of their trade: beautiful paper, new canvasses, coloured beads, crisp, untouched sheet music and kitchen knives that can slice a cat’s whisker in two.

Yet only a privileged few can make their living by their pen or paintbrush or potter’s wheel.

So how do we measure - and promote - the importance of creative pursuits in today’s busy and increasingly materialistic world?

Unfinished Business

How many of us have a creative project tucked away somewhere in a drawer or under our bed?

I can think of friends with novels, quilts and watercolours that lurk in the back of their minds like a half-forgotten love.

I believe that most women treasure time. Many of us take pleasure in long recipes, complex crosswords and overgrown gardens.

So when time is in short supply, we are often forced into difficult decisions.

Practical needs often come first and whatever is left over is used to feed our creative interests. The novel gathers dust, the quilt remains unfinished and the watercolour begins to fade. But while that little piece of us is relegated to the back of the line, what are we missing out on?

More importantly, what are we teaching our children about the value of creativity when they know that mum’s great passion is just a rainy-day hobby gathering dust under her bed?

Creative Endings

Amy at Lives Less Ordinary describes creativity as the fostering of ideas.

In the 1990s Sir Ken Robinson seemed to agree, for he was largely responsible for convincing British business and government that long-term success will depend increasingly on continuous creativity within schools.

Now London is on a mission to become the creative capital of the world.

As a keynote speaker in Melbourne this year, Sir Ken Robinson shared the findings of a creative genius test developed by the US Defense Department.

The research showed that:

98% of five year olds
24% of the ten year olds and
2% of college students were in the ‘genius’ bracket in terms of creativity.

The school system had effectively killed off childhood creativity.

The Time of Your Life

My personal irony is that while I continue to dream big, my hopes and plans forever growing and developing, time refuses to bend from its rigid path.

So while I like to think of myself as time-rich because of all of the wonderful things that exist in this moment, I am constantly making decisions about which dreams and hopes and plans I can support.

To make this process easier, there are four simple guidelines that help me get clear about where my energies should be spent:

1. Ensure every day has moments of beauty
2. Take pleasure in communicating with others
3. Let you body find its natural rhythm
4. Simplify the things that distract you the most

These principles are the foundation of my story Stop and Smell the Roses about a woman, much like myself, who is struggling to get her priorities right.

It is my mission to prioritise those pursuits that feed my soul, even if my bank balance - and potentially my husband - have to go hungry once in a while!

If you think it is time to share some creative inspiration, drop me a line and let me know how you are going to create the time of your life …