Fighting Chaos

I posted the show notes from the previous episode of Heroes Wanted on Instagram last week. I received a great reply from my friend Mark Booher over @TheBarritus. Mark has been a guest on several of my podcast episodes and is a wealth of information.

Quote-
“I also think facing chaos is intimidating because it’s unknown - without the form we’re accustomed to. But it’s from chaos that order is formed. And if you look at the myths and legends of old, creating order from chaos is often a violent and bloody one - metaphorically speaking.” -Mark Booher

This post got me thinking about chaos, a consistent and persistent adversary of man since the beginning of time. The reality that we must accept is that life is chaos, the chaos is never going away. We must find a way to adapt and overcome the chaos, if only in our day to day lives and in the lives of those that we influence each day.

Merriam-Webster – Definition of chaos
1 : a state of utter confusion
the blackout caused chaos throughout the city
b : a confused mass or mixture
a chaos of television antennas

I don’t know that I could come up with a term to better describe the world that we are living in today. But unlike many, I don’t believe that it is out of the ordinary. I don’t even believe that we are necessarily living in extraordinary times. I believe that it has always been this way. The difference perhaps is that have more information, maybe too much information, and as has often happened throughout history we have lost faith in those that we need to trust in order to believe that there is order.

Merriam-Webster – Definition of order
to put in order : arrange
The books are ordered alphabetically by author.

As men, it has been our defining purpose to serve through bringing order. Our attempts at bringing order are epic. Everything from time to calendars to hieroglyphics is a search for order. Some have resulted in great benefits for all (water filtration, capitalism) others have led to the death of millions (communism).

This need for order drives each of us as individuals in our personal lives, our families, and our communities. It is this drive for order that is often used to manipulate us as I talked about in my episode from Feb. 20 titled Following The Script, go give it a listen. The script we follow is not inherently bad but is used to bring order to your family, your culture, your community, etc.

I want to key in on two ways to fight the chaos. Because if you do not engage at least in these two ways. The chaos will chew you up and spit you out. The chaos or the way in which you deal with it will overcome you and destroy you.

#1. Find the beauty in the midst of the chaos. It is always there but rarely easy to find. In my book OPEN: Six Life Changing Principles I delve into a very personal story of some ministry work we did in the Guatemala city dump. Of all of the places that I have traveled and met people, this was beyond compare as the worst place I have ever been. The hopelessness hung in the air along with the stench of rotten trash, human excrement, and filth. The total pits of life are not far from here, within spitting distance. The only thing that could have made this place worse was war. As a lower-middle-class American trying to gain some sort of mental grasp on what I was seeing let alone experiencing was a challenge. The chaos was everywhere. As I searched for something to hold on to, I noticed the children. In the midst of this hell, there were children smiling and laughing. These malnourished, dirty, bare-footed children were happy. This was their world, they knew nothing different, and like all kids, they enjoyed the puppet show, balloons, candy, and attention we shared. Without finding the beauty in the chaos, you can and will at some point be overwhelmed. Without finding the beauty, a reason, a hope, you will not be able to fully focus or engage in life or your tasks at your best or in a worthy manner.

Find the beauty, your wife, your family, a song, a poem, quote, or verse, find the why.

#2. You don’t now, and never will have total control. In order to maintain a sort of at least healthy respect for this fact we as humans have devised ways to live within this chaos.

Routine: to give order to our life and the lives of our family.
Tradition: to give order to a larger group of people, a culture, community, or country.

Like most things that involve humans, these can get out of order themselves and lead to their very own chaos. The antithesis of a routine of order is a routine of sedation and sabotage. In an effort to bring order, a sense of control to our lives we can cause great destruction. Just as I mentioned earlier the endeavor to bring order can be extremely destructive to yourselves and those in the vicinity. Things like micro-managing seem to bring order but don’t. Aggressiveness, yelling, and bullying bring a sense of control but ultimately birth even more chaos and you sabotage your very own good intentions. If you are not intentional in how you bring order by routine you will take the path of sedation. You will sedate yourself with alcohol, porn, video games, politics, sports, food, entertainment, living vicariously through for children. You will find a way to hide from the chaos rather than confront the chaos head-on. For far too many of our fellow-men this has led to suicide. Husbands and fathers finding a permanent solution for the temporary chaos that seems to have taken control. You must build a routine that challenges you on a daily basis and keeps you alert to the dangers of sedation, self-sabotage, and suicide. I recorded an episode on my morning routine a while back, I also have a training video available for a quick daily journal system. These things are a part of a routine to give me some control of the chaos in my own life.

Man has had tradition since the beginning of time. From the solstices to harvest, to the celebration of the seasons. Once again these traditions can become destructive, like the sacrificing of babies in many cultures. The power of these traditions can be felt as we call this phenomenon the Christmas spirit at Christmas time. Once again, build these traditions that you and your family participate in with intent. Do your traditions build unity? Do they bring joy? Is there excitement in anticipation of them? Build your own weekly, monthly, and yearly family traditions. Make them unique, these differences will create a distinction between you and others. For bonus points, have a family meeting and solicit suggestions, and vote on things to do. Your influence through your routine, like my daily note writing and through your family tradition brings order to the chaos.

web - Heroeswanted.us/coaching
email - jprim@heroeswated.us