Embrace the Chaos

Is there ever a good reason to seek out chaos and drama?

I say yes.

Common wisdom says “Avoid drama and chaos. You don't need any more added stress in your life.”

Oh really?

Any athletic endeavor is complete chaos. Team sports like football and basketball exemplify this to a high degree due to their fast paced and complicated nature. To the untrained eye, it looks like a scramble of chaotic movements.

Yet so many athletes report a universal transcendence of time, of a completely feeling of present-moment peace that defies a simple explanation. Instead of being a stress filled environment, it has a peaceful sanctuary

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

I personally feel that any profession or endeavor which includes chaos, high pressure and drama creates an opportunity for an individual; grow or die.

If people yelling at each other is too much for you, then being a trader on a stock exchange floor won't work. That is your limitation.

Or you can decide that you'll figure out a way to re-define the hectic nature that a trader profession would be and grow to enjoy the chaos. Sounds crazy but people do it all the time. Some people even find it to be their “sanctuary of peace”. No shit.

“But some people are just meant to be/genetically designed to be/were raised to be a stock trader/basketball player/politician” some will say.

There is no denying that certain people will fit in easier in these roles from their upbringing or whatever.

Then there were others who saw what they wanted, decided they will have to do whatever to get there and forced themselves to mold into whatever the situation required of them.

THINKING ABOUT POLITICS

Imagine millions of people hating on you, talking shit about you, openly mocking you and criticizing everything you say. You have the notion of what it's like to be a politician.

Who would want to deal with all that bullshit? Who wants to deal with all that drama? Who has tough enough skin to even handle that?

Not me, that's for sure. But I guarantee anyone who really wants to become that politician; you'll have to learn to deal with it. And odds are good that you'll be better for it.

The key idea here is that if a person wants to be a politician badly, they will accept the craziness involved.

Not a single person sees the craziness and says "Yeah I don't mind that", it's just that people see being a congressman/president as worth going through all the bullshit.  

My personal belief is that this situation can lead someone to become more awesome but it's clear that not everyone does become self-fulfilled or whatever.  There are plenty of politicians who just become more jaded and cranky.

But that goes to how people handle the new stress....

DEALING WITH THE CHAOS

In order to deal in these highly chaotic environments, there has to be a coping mechanism. And those come in healthy and unhealthy forms.

It seems like the most common answer to stress is alcohol. Cracking open a bottle of wine after a hard day at work seems harmless but it cannot be a long-term strategy for dealing with discomfort. So drinking is not a healthy coping mechanism.

A healthy coping mechanism is to stop taking yourself seriously. If massive amounts of people are hating on you (common as a leader in politics, business or even in a social circle) then why not just let go of needing people's approval? It's free and has no downside. It's not as appealing because it's not a quick-fix; it takes a long time to sink in.

Whatever approach a person takes to dealing with the stress from a chaotic environment will always fall under two categories; either unhealthy (short-term thinking like drugs/alcohol/spending money) or healthy (long-term regenerative stuff like deep personality changes/healthy habit changes/mental re-framing).

Both will work for a time, but the healthy approach will lead to a long lasting solution.

LIVE IN THE CHAOS

The aim of this article is not to go searching for chaos and drama. Far from it.

Instead, don't avoid situations because you have pigeon-holed yourself into a perfect little box of “Who you are”. Who you are is bullshit, a mind-made little fantasy that just wants to keep finding more and more reasons to justify not trying new “scary” things.

Maybe you would like to throw yourself directly into discomfort by trying your hand at Improv comedy. Chances are good you will suck but hey....don't you think you might just love it?

To me, chaos and drama are like a purifying elixir that will force me to stop being a little whiny bitch. It forces me to stop trying to hope for a life that is filled with relaxation and everything being perfect. Life is about dealing with all the uncertainty that is thrown at you every single day.

If it can inspire someone to finally go after that job/goal/leadership position they've always wanted, then that is the whole point.

Waiting for Tomorrow

The true tragedy of life today is that most of us are looking towards the future.

We're waiting for that “one day” when we get the job, the friends, the vacation or the good health we want.

Then, we tell ourselves, we will finally be happy.

In the meantime we'll try to scuttle around and get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Whatever is in-between those two points is just filler, not really life.

Oddly enough though 99.9% of our lives is filled with “filler”.

For me it's walking. Waiting for the bus. Showering. Brushing my teeth. Sleeping. Reading. Casual socializing. Working.

The “Point B” moments, those moments where something awesome or significant happens, occur much more infrequently. Categorizing life like this, like a series of events passing us by, is pretty messed up.

But it's how a great majority of people live their lives.

AUTO-PILOT

Many of us are just robots, sleepwalking from one thing to the next. We wake up and do our chores without much vigor or joy. Chores are just tasks to be crossed off the list, to get to the next thing.

Think about the last time you brushed your teeth. Do you even remember how you felt? Do you remember the feeling of the toothpaste bubbling up in your mouth? Do you remember scrubbing each tooth individually? Or is it just a fog of memory?

The way we answer this seemingly innocuous question reveals quite a lot about how we live our lives.

If you are just sleepwalking through most of your day, waiting to get to some sort of stimulation like TV or alcohol or sex or a raise or to go to a concert, you are unconsciously writing a program into your brain.

You're embedding a pattern of thinking in your brain that says “Let's just see how quickly we can get to the next stimulation that will tickle my little need to be titillated.”

And just like a drug, the amount of stimulation you need to feel satisfied becomes greater and greater each and every time. Instead of being satisfied by one TV show, you end up watching hours of show after show.

At one point in my life I was addicted to TV. I would end up sitting in front of the screen for 8 hours at a time.

Did I really enjoy watching the television?

No. I remember I would end up turning off the screen after a long marathon of shows feeling like a ball of crap. How did I end up wasting that much time today? I don't feel any better than when I pressed the “on” button. Why can't I turn this off?

My brain was programmed to “enjoy” this particular stimulation. After repeating this habit on a daily basis it became harder and harder to break the cycle. Suddenly a simple thing like turning the TV off seemed impossible.

Our brains will accept almost anything we expose it to. It does not differentiate between productive and unproductive behaviors.

So when we begin to live every day waiting for the next “Point B” moment, we are programming this way of thinking into our brains. I call it Zombie mode. The more our brain is exposed to Zombie mode, the easier it is to fall into it. More important, it becomes a great deal more challenging to break loose from it.

Zombie Mode!

And think about it; day after day after day of living like this will make life seem really dull.

You won't know it of course, because the change is always gradual. Months will have gone past and you won't even notice you have slipped into this pattern of thinking. The only thing you might notice is a great deal of discomfort when you are in between the “Point B” moments.

THE SOLUTION

The solution is not quick-fix. The solution is to be present to the moment.

And this means re-training your brain to just be happy/satisfied/content with being in solitude or not being stimulated.

It can take a long time. It takes some focus and there will most definitely be pain. But in the end no one would ever regret it.

Pain is Good

I've come to really appreciate pain at this point in my life.

Not physical pain (that's fucking weird haha) but the mental and emotional pain that comes with growing up and REALLY realizing that you are responsible for yourself at the end of the day.

This process is a universal one and we all have to go through it at different points in our lives.

The problem is this; are you going to live in the pain or are you going to avoid it?

Living in the pain means acknowledging it for what it is. It means not personalizing it. It means not wallowing in, but wading in it.

The opposite is avoidance. The pain causes you to drink, eat or watch TV excessively. Stimulation in all it's forms can keep you from having to deal with this real pain......until it doesn't anymore. Maybe I can even pretend that there really isn't a problem at all. Self-deception works. Until it doesn't.

Real world example; I avoided regularly flossing for a long time.

I would floss here and there but not nearly as much as I should. Some people can get away with flossing less but I certainly cannot because I have some sort of weird genetic condition where my gums will wear away over time.

The last dentist checkup was an alarming one as their routine procedures produced lots of bleeding and decent amounts of pain. After wards, the dentist sat with me and told me the grotesque things that will happen over time if I continue to avoid flossing regularly.

I sat there like a child who hadn't done his homework. I was ashamed and could think of all the excuses in the world but knew that I was the problem.

It was painful to hold myself accountable. It was painful to get a reality check on myself. I am not the disciplined person I thought I was. I was letting things slip.

 And I waded in the pain. It made me think. It made me get my shit together (flossing regularly as of right now).

This is a few orders of magnitude lower than some of the most painful areas of life. For those whose health is at risk because of obesity, they know all too well of the very acute pain it brings. To accurately pinpoint where you are at means you have to hold yourself accountable. To be held accountable means you will be faced with the fact that you aren't quite the person you thought you were.

But it's the only way to move forward.

Here's the thing....

...I am not one for wishy-washy motivation quotes or “Go get'em” speeches. I'm more of a practical approach type of guy.

So when I say that there is hope in light of pain it is simply this; once you face the pain, it dissolves away.

Instead of pain, you will feel a refreshing clarity that can bring you to where you need to go.

This sounds incredibly wishy-washy but it's simply been the truth for me. When I realized that I was getting fat I was honest with myself. I didn't get mad or feel bad (maybe I did a little) but I said “this is the situation, where do I go from here?”

It was hard to admit that I slipped. I held myself in high regard up until that point. But I got a reality check and moved on.

Facing the pain is a powerful concept to grasp. But it is no magic pill.

Life is fucking hard. It is really tough. Bad things happen. There are always setbacks. People will deceive you. In other words, this isn't going to solve your problems immediately.

It is just something that can get the gears moving in the right direction.

So when we accept pain and let it run it's course, it doesn't mean your life will dramatically improve. That doesn't make sense. But it will give you a starting place.

“I Wish Things Were Different”

I recently lost my job.

My employer decided to close it doors and just like that I was a member of the unemployed.

It's so fascinating to really examine the thoughts that run through my head.

“Why me?”

“Why do bad things happen to me?”

“Why can't things ever work out for me?”

“I wish things were easier”

For anybody who's ever lost their job or family member or large sums of money probably know intimately of what I'm speaking of.

It's self-pity. It's wallowing. It's questioning yourself.

It's normal. No reason to feel bad about it. But it's the truth.

I catch myself thinking like this and it repulses me.

Do I really want things to be easier? Do I really want everything to just “work out”? Do I really wish things were different?

NO.

Things are exactly how they should be and the only thing I wish would change is how I feel about the situation. Instead of wishing that things were different, I wish that this little sappy moany whining crying bitch that lives inside of me would stop hoping that things would be easier.

Seriously. Inside all of us lives a little sappy moany whining crying bitch that yearns for a world without bad people, bad events, death and losing. When they happen our bitch-self feels good about pointing it's finger at an “insane” world.

But the world isn't insane. We  are.

Everything is exactly how it's supposed to be.

I am in this situation because of the choices I've made in the past. I'm in a tight position right now because I haven't been diligently saving money or looking for a better job for the last couples months. That's really it.

It's the laws of the universe. If you eat bad food and sit around you will get fat. If you don't save money up for an emergency, an emergency will happen and you will be fucked. If you stop paying your bills the lights will eventually get shut off.

These are just consequences of our actions plain and simple.

I think what I'm trying to say is this: don't wish for things to be different. Just accept the situation as it is.

If it's a messed up situation then do whatever course of action needs to be taken. Stick up for yourself. Move on. Say your goodbyes. Leave. Stay. Do whatever.

But don't be mad that the world doesn't work out. It just does what it does. Trying to make it any other way is insane.