Member-only story
“If You Fail to Plan, You Are Planning to Fail!”
What happens when you fall into the second part of Benjamin Franklin’s most famous quote.
It is the most ponderous of quotes, isn’t it? Seemingly obvious to its reader. And yet — day after day — we find ourselves dealing with the consequences of not planning.
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” Benjamin Franklin
The message from dear old Ben is impeccable, but still, we fail to grasp its significance. Instead, it seems a rather naïve belief takes hold. Chance will see us good; it won’t let us down. Everything will be okay.
Of course, this is a myth for one very good reason. Entropy.
Entropy — Beyond the Science
Entropy is a word rarely heard, ostensibly lost in the depths of the English language. In part, this is because it stems from thermodynamics. The science sounds complicated and for this reason, most of us avoid it.
We might choose to avoid the science, but we can’t avoid how the science of entropy affects us. Beyond science, entropy explains how random chance can be.
At this stage, allow me to quote James Clear. In his article, Entropy: Why Life Always Seems to Get More Complicated James explains how entropy presents itself to us.
What is entropy? Here’s a simple way to think about it:
Imagine that you take a box of puzzle pieces and dump them out on a table. In theory, it is possible for the pieces to fall perfectly into place and create a completed puzzle when you dump them out of the box. But in reality, that never happens.
Why?
Quite simply, because the odds are overwhelmingly against it. Every piece would have to fall in just the right spot to create a completed puzzle. There is only one possible state where every piece is in order, but there are a nearly infinite number of states where the pieces are in disorder. Mathematically speaking, an orderly outcome is incredibly unlikely to happen at random.
Simply put, entropy is a measure of disorder. It is always with us, surrounding us and the life…
