Finding order in chaos.
Lucky are those who truly find their passion in life. And luckier are those who have the liberty to pursue it. After endless failed attempts at finding out what my passion in life was, I finally stumbled upon it. I realized I was really passionate about learning new things, adding a tinge of my individuality in it, and then broadcasting it to the world through profound, captivating and thought-invoking content. I found my pensive recluse in writing. However, whenever I sit down to write an article (or even think about writing one), I am struck with this overwhelming fear. The fear of exposing myself (through my ideas) to the world. The fear of being judged. The fear of my content not being good enough. The fear of being laughed at for expressing myself. The fear of being vulnerable in front of the world. This fear keeps me from pursuing my passion.
The order of my comfortable life made me aversive to the chaos embedded in growth. I had to find a solution for this. This made me start thinking about the two fundamental states of being: order and chaos.
Order is safety. Order is comfortable. Order is balance. Order is the Known. Order is lying comfortably in your room playing video games without a worry in the world. Order is taking a blissful stroll in the park with your lover, thinking how great your life is. Order is having a stable 9–5 job that pays the bills and allows you to live an ordinary, comfortable life.
While order is all those good things. Order is also complacency. Order is also stagnation. Order is also being ignorant of the changes in your environment and your world. Order is also susceptibility to a difficult future because you wouldn’t hustle and pursue your ambitions. Order is also a potentially teetering relationship because you wouldn’t address the underlying issues between you and your partner, pretending everything was alright. Order is also being vulnerable to being financially crushed by inflation just because you refused to grow your income sources.
Chaos, on the other hand, is just hell. Everything is stressful. Everything is unknown. Everything is dangerous. It’s just horrifying. Chaos is when you are struck with disaster. The only things you can feel are fear and pain. Chaos is when your world falls apart around you. Your reality is challenged. Your identity is questioned. Your being is burnt to ashes.
However, to be reborn as a phoenix, one must first be burnt down to ashes.
You see, we humans are innately accustomed to seeking comfort. We dwell on pursuing pleasure. We shy away from pain and discomfort. That is why we hate going to the gym, and meeting new people and avoiding situations we are not good at, fearing we would embarrass ourselves. We prefer the dopamine hits that Instagram reels provide over the adrenaline rush of a good workout. We prefer to suppress or avoid our problems rather than facing them. We pretend our personality is perfect rather than addressing problems in it. We prefer order over chaos.
But the cruel joke of life is that our sustenance and growth has been buried in realms of chaos, like a treasure chest in the unknown wilderness. We have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable in order to grow. We have to hustle today to ensure a better tomorrow. We have to go through pain and suffering today to guarantee pleasure in the future. This means we have to enter into the realms of chaos to expand our circle of order (imagine order as a circle where everything is good, known and comfortable, and chaos being everything outside it).
But how do we do this? Staying in order would stagnate us. But at the same time, diving into chaos would be too overwhelming and would almost certainly end in disaster.
I asked myself the same question when I sat down to write today. And I think the answer is trying to be in both realms at the same time. Keeping one foot in order while steadily advancing with the other foot in chaos. Challenging yourself every day. Each day taking a step that isn’t too inside the circle of order to be comfortable, but also isn’t too far in the realms of chaos to be destructive. I think maintaining an intricate balance between the two everyday is the way to ensure sustainable growth while keeping myself sane and emotionally healthy. Hope I am right!
