Chaos

Day 38. Chaos.

Ever have that feeling that the world is closing in on you, and you're not ready for it? Sometimes think that life has caught up with you, and you're running as fast as you can to stay ahead? Yeah, been there. Life does have a tendency to do just that. It borders on chaos more often than not, often without us realizing it. We are closer to the edge than we know, juggling unknown porcelain dishes. Chaos. It's a warning signal for disaster, alerting us to impending doom.

Years ago, I worked way too many hours. I did that to avoid the chaos that would overtake me if I didn't have enough money to pay the bills. I knew the insanity of spending so much time away from home didn't make sense, but the alarm in my head told me to keep it up to avoid the consequences. I paid a price for it, missing time with my family and friends. But the alternative was too difficult to choose otherwise.

Then there was the chaos at work. Also so busy, never quite enough time to complete everything that needed done so we could avoid the next crisis. There was a joke at my first aviation job that it was called Maintenance Chaos, not Maintenance Control. If we thought we had control, we were kidding ourselves. Not unlike regular life, if we think we're in control, just wait a few minutes and we see the truth.

We can only hope to keep all the porcelain in the air. We have many choices we can make: what bill to pay, what can wait, who we can go to for help. Or we can try and control the chaos alone. I don't recommend that course, it's much more difficult to juggle more than three things at once by yourself. The more people you have around you, the easier things are to manage.

Of course, we could try and avoid the chaos altogether. If you figure out how to do that successfully, please let me know. I've been looking for that solution all my life, and gotten pretty much nowhere with it. The best laid plans, etc.

Lesson Thirty Eight: Do you try and do "too much"? Are you sometimes overwhelmed with the things that seem to crop up at the very worst times? Think about how you can plan better, to ease the stress. Then realize you're probably going to cause yourself more stress trying to implement that plan.

692 to go...