“Be loyal to those who are not present, and you will gain the respect of those who are.”

~Unknown

Loyalty is a fine and noble thing. It’s at the heart of love, because it looks after others first, it’s at the core of of success, because it requires self-discipline and thoughts of consequences, it’s at the foundation of building a better world, because it takes looking outside of ourselves and at the larger picture, and it’s at the soul of elegance, because it prevents us from saying things that are graceless and self-serving.

Loyalty is what demands that friends and family defend each other to one another and to outsiders, it encourages husbands and wives to talk things through rather than sharing private details with friends, and it asks employees to look for ways to make things better rather than tearing down the employer they’re being paid to build up. It reminds us to speak fondly, or at least objectively, rather than jumping into the fray, and it brings about resolution instead of breeding further contempt.

There are some that would say that loyalty has gone out of fashion, or that it’s a naive and antiquated idea in today’s world. After all, governments are untrustworthy, the nuclear family has broken down, corporations are greedy, and marriages fail. Then again, what are governments, families, corporations and marriages made of, if not for each one of us? How can we expect our institutions not to fail, if we fail our institutions? How can we expect to be trusted, if others hear us being flippant or disrespectful about those we love? Why would a prospective employer hire us if we speak ill of our current, or former employer, knowing they will be next?

This isn’t to say that there aren’t times we must speak up, or that we should let crimes go unpunished. It isn’t to say that the loyal opposition shouldn’t be alive and thriving. It’s just to say, that in our everyday lives, we have the opportunity to do something that is both small and grand by simply being loyal. When we ask ourselves what we can do to change the world in some small way, being loyal may just be the elegant thing.

La Marseillaise photo credit

I think brunch may be my favourite meal. I love the civilized time of day that it’s served, I love that Champagne is its official drink, I love the tantalizingly glorious mixture of dishes that are traditional brunch fare, and I love that I can almost always find live jazz as brunch’s faithful companion. There’s only one problem with brunch…I save it for special occasions.

I don’t have brunch every week, or even every month. I don’t revel in a leisurely brunch at home on a Saturday with jazz playing in the background. I don’t invite a few special friends over for brunch on a public holiday, and I don’t have brunch just simply because. I save brunch for Mother’s Day, Christmas morning, vacations, or a girlfriend’s birthday celebration. Why is that? Why can’t there be more special occasions made, rather than waiting for them to be happen? Luckily, this problem can be solved. I’ve been looking for a New Year’s resolution that I can get passionate about, and this might just be it.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking, and you’d be correct in thinking that there are much more weighty items that could be on my New Year’s resolution list, but don’t I deserve just one little resolution that’s simple, lovely and that I’ll look forward to keeping? Won’t a happier me be more able to tackle the heavier changes I need to make in my life in 2012? Won’t enjoying brunch a bit more often add just the right amount of sparkle to those sometimes rather dull weeks? No, I think it’s just the right thing to add in to my life, whilst I’m whittling away all those things that need to be taken out. As a matter of fact, rather than making resolutions about all the things I need to STOP doing, perhaps I’ll start making resolutions about all the things I want to begin doing. Eventually, maybe I’ll be so busy doing all of the things I love, and that make me happy, I just won’t be able to find the time to do any of the things that I shouldn’t, and I’ll have a life I simply adore. A life that’s full of everything I enjoy, dream about, and care for.

That’s me taken care of then. A New Year’s brunch resolution. I like it.

eggs benedict at Bar Tartine, San Francisco

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The concept of Gross National Happiness is based on Buddhist principles, and was begun by the nation’s former king. The four core components of GNH are sustainable development, cultural values, conservation of the natural environment and establishment of good governance. Through collaboration with an international group of scholars and researchers, the Centre for Bhutan Studies has further defined GNH as physical, mental and spiritual health, time-balance, social and community vitality, cultural vitality, education, living standards, good governance, and ecological vitality. Coincidentally, the same pillars of the slow movement in the west, and values that we can each instill in our own lives, even if our governments aren’t yet measuring them for us.

Although critics say GNH is difficult to measure, Bhutan has been rated the happiest country in Asia, and among the happiest countries in the world. They may have just struck on the science of happiness…now that’s what I call elegant.

photo credit-Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity

I think a lot about slow. I think about how it empowers us, and makes life feel almost effortless. I think about how much richer my life is without unedited fast, and how much more often I’m able to simply be. After years of rushing around in high heels, I’m enjoying lingering, I really am, but can slow also be taken too far? I mean, how slow, exactly, is too slow?

Within the slow movement, there’s slow food, slow money, slow travel, slow design, slow fashion, slow parenting, and slow living, and I support all of it, but can slow become just as debilitating as fast, if we aren’t careful? Could we become so shut off from the world that we’re no longer able to function in fast? Could we lose our lust for life, if we don’t have the occasional overindulgence? If there are no challenges or goals, does one day just begin to look like the next? Can even living in the moment become monotonous?

It seems the point of slow is to control the fast, not to eradicate it. After all, what would life be without the rush of adrenaline that comes from beating a deadline? Or the hustle and bustle of shopping during the holidays? Or the all out thrill of being dressed to the nines at a big black-tie event? Aren’t these things to savour and enjoy too?

I’m not suggesting going back to multi-tasking, overworking or overspending, but doesn’t every girl need just a little fast?

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I have a girlfriend, who we’ll call Ava. Ava is smart, beautiful, slender, has enjoyed tremendous career and financial success, has a lovely home, and has a wide circle of friends that adore her. So Ava and I were talking not long ago, and she asked a question that I simply couldn’t answer. “Is good enough ever just good enough?”

Ava has spent her life not settling. She wants only the best, and when she doesn’t have it, she goes out and gets it. And she’s exhausted. There’s never been one moment that Ava could sit back and just enjoy. There’s always one more thing to work on perfecting. She doesn’t even want to think about why she isn’t yet married. Had she looked past the ideal mate because his nose was only ‘good enough’?

So what do you think, is good enough ever just good enough?

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The culture of coffee is filled with richness and romance. Whether it’s sitting alone with a book in a coffeehouse breathing in the aroma of strong black coffee on a rainy day, or imagining the intellectual conversation over espresso between Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein at Les Deux Magots, or cappuccino fueled flirting with the one you love, coffee has a way of encouraging you to linger just a little bit longer.

It encourages you to stay in bed for just a few minutes more with the Sunday Times, it asks you to sit around your girlfriend’s kitchen table for a bit more catching up, and it ties up the perfect dinner party with one final unhurried bow.

Of course, like most things, coffee can be rushed, but oh the elegance of lingering.

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Whether she was with her children, entertaining at a grand White House dinner, or beginning her second career in the publishing industry, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis really did show us how elegant it is to take your time, be kind and gracious to others, and to never ever lose your joie de vivre.

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1. You finally realize that healthy, happy, without make-up, and in yoga pants looks and feels better than stressed, pressed, and unhappy in an Armani business suit every single day of the year

2. You have your dream car, your dream house and your dream family, but you travel on business so often that you never see any of them

3. You can’t remember the last time you had a leisurely bath

4. Or 8 hours sleep

5. Or a nap

6. After running your home, your family’s activities and your work team, you feel qualified to run any major military offensive

7. You have a nanny, a dog walker, a houseplant waterer, a gardener, a housekeeper, a life coach, an executive coach, and a therapist, but you still feel overwhelmed

8. You weep when you watch cooking shows, because you long for the time to make anything homemade

9. Having the family all at the dinner table means something was cancelled, or forgotten

10. You’ve forgotten what fun is, and how to have it

11. You simply cannot go a day without your iPhone

12. The only way to catch up at work is to work weekends

13. And holidays

14. And while on vacation

15. You can’t possibly have dinner ready before 9pm on a workday

16. The children are each involved in more activities than there are days of the week

17. The dog’s calendar is as busy as the children’s

18. Your budget is stretched to the point it might snap, simply due to the cost of maintaining your lifestyle

19. Conversation on date night centers around who has which carpool/appointment/parent-teacher conference/late evening dog walk

20. You’ve begun to feel numb, due to lack of engagement in your own life

21. You’re so tightly booked that going to the loo puts you behind schedule

22. Holidays and vacations are either spent catching up on cleaning or sleep, because you have no other time to do it

23. You eat fast food so often that the children have forgotten that you can cook

24. You’ve lost your joie de vivre

25. The only exercise you get is running from one meeting to another

26. Breathing deeply seems like a luxury

27. So does lunch

28. When you hosted your last dinner party, guests were invited via group text because you didn’t have time to order invitations or invite them by phone

29. It’s been a long, long, long time since you lingered over the newspaper

30. Or read a book

31. The price you’ve paid for career success is your life

32. You quantify everything by how much time it takes, rather than how much joy it brings into your life

33. The division between work and home no longer exists

34. You long to lose your cellular phone, just for a few minutes of peace

35. At your current savings rate, you won’t ever be able to retire

36. Your 5 year old has suggested you use a credit card when you’ve said you don’t have the money for a toy

37. You only own silk plants, because you don’t have time to commit to live ones

38. Lately, romance has been falling asleep while watching Mad Men together

39. There’s so much more pleasure in a glass of wine with friends than there is in working late

40. You tweet, text, and update Facebook more than you interact with people

41. The things you buy are so trendy that they’re out of style before you get them home

42. You don’t have time to daydream

43. You speak to your work colleagues more than your partner

44. The children can’t remember seeing you unhurried and relaxed

45. You see having a haircut or pedicure as the perfect time to catch up on email

46. Your dog is sent out into the garden alone for exercise, rather than being taken on those lovely walks you’d envisioned

47. There’s nothing you like about your job, except for the pay

48. You dread holidays and vacations because of the amount of work they require

49. Weekends are for recovery rather than enjoyment

50. The “one that got away” told you that you work too much

51. Your weekly lunch/dinner with the girls was the first casualty of your new job

52. You’ve recently noticed that you’re sick far more often than you used to be

53. You’ve also noticed that you’re rude, short and irritable far more often than you once were

54. If you lost your planner/calendar your life would come to a screeching halt with enormous collateral damage

55. Paying the bills, balancing your checkbook and checking that the direct debits are correct takes up a whole day

56. Your bucket list includes cooking dinner

57. You miss so many functions that your partner has to carry date-stamped photos of you with the family because no one believes you really exist

58. You have so much stuff that you can’t possibly use or wear it all

59. The maintenance/care of above stuff takes your entire weekend to complete

60. You make enough money, but you don’t have the time to enjoy it

61. You’ve fantasized about running away from home and living as a hermit

62. You’ve fantasized about traveling the world with just a backpack

63. You think slowing down means having a second cup of coffee

64. You’ve actually thought that if you didn’t need sleep you could get so much more done

65. You have more than 4 email addresses that you work out of (that’s for you @thedirtymartini)

66. It takes a minimum of 2 weeks on vacation to get your mind to stop whirring

67. There’s not one single fun thing on your to-do list

68. Your daily commute is half as long as your workday

69. Your morning beauty regimen takes more time than your daily commute

70. Your last vacation was as overbooked as your work calendar

71. Your life is so complicated that it’s hard to even imagine how to begin to unravel it

72. You’ve forgotten more obligations than your grandparents ever had

73. Your diet/nutrition plan has so many moving pieces that you need a coach

74. You just can’t get that farmhouse in Italy/cottage in England/ranch in Texas image out of your mind

75. There are stress related medications in your cupboard

76. When you do have time to sleep, insomnia steps in

77. Not even yoga works these days

78. You have your dream house, dream car and dream career, but they aren’t all you expected them to be

79. You’ve almost left your children somewhere by accident

80. You’ve begun to envy people that have less than you do

81. You speed through art museums and libraries like a morning commuter speeds through traffic

82. You have gorgeous cookware and kitchen tools that have never been used

83. You moved away from your hometown in search of fame and fortune, but now all you can think about is moving back home

84. You’d like your children to grow up near their grandparents

85. You’d like your children to grow up with their parents

86. You’d like your marriage to last forever

87. You want to remember how it feels to be really happy

88. You want to teach your kids how to live an uncomplicated life

89. You want to have time to contribute more to the planet

90. So that you can wear boyfriend jeans and a tee every day

91. So that you’ll have more time to chase a dream

92. So that you’ll have the time to write the book you’ve got inside of you

93. So that you’ll have the time to be yourself

94. So that you’ll have the time to let others be themselves

95. You think you’re at a fork in the road

96. You suffer from the trendy new disease known as “time poverty”

97. You don’t want to just go along with the crowd

98. You know there’s something better

99. You’re in danger of losing your health, your marriage, or your relationship with your children

100. You’ve seen the other side, and you like it

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Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. 

~Charles Mingus

The forward thinkers have always been the ones that have been able to make the complicated simple. Coco Chanel made fashion elegantly simple, Albert Einstein made physics elegantly simple, Julia Child made French cooking elegantly simple, and Henry David Thoreau made life elegantly simple.

To find success in life, in love, and in business, don’t look for ways to make the simple complicated; find a way to make the complicated simple, awesomely simple.

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