Note:
At the very least we should simplify our inner lives by removing attachments. Then, ideally, we become free to simplify our outer lives, making the exercise of our spiritual gifts (i.e., doing our work) more fully possible. It’s deeply interesting how the inner and outer operate in tandem.

Quote:
“One word suggests itself here before any other: you must simplify your life. You have a difficult journey before you — do not burden yourself with too much baggage. Perhaps you are not absolutely free to do this, and so you think there is no use laying down rules. That is a mistake. Given the same external circumstances, a desire for simplification can do much, and what one cannot get rid of outwardly, one can always remove from one’s soul.”

Source: Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987, page 41.