By David Magallanes / Guest contributor
Earlier this year I started to read a book that is not your average bedside novel. When people at a party ask me, “What books are you reading now?” I no longer tell them that I’m reading this particular book. I don’t like getting that “What planet are you from?”-look, and then have them shake their head and walk away, not quite sure if they still want to be my friend. Ever.
But I’ll tell you, my loyal readers, because I know you’re open-minded and won’t abandon me just because I’m “different.”
I’m reading “Chaos: An Introduction To Dynamical Systems,” by Kathleen Alligood, Tim Sauer and James Yorke. I love this stuff. I may spend a week on one page sometimes, trying to get to the bottom of what the authors are trying to get across in mathematical language and with an explanation that assumes many years of mathematical background, but I actually look forward to diving in and trying to learn something new. As John Kennedy once said as he announced our goal to reach the moon within the decade: “…we choose to…do…things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” He was always my hero.
Chaos… it’s a fascinating topic. Tinker with a few constants in an equation, and mathematical chaos ensues. Is that cool, or what?
What I find even more fascinating is how we tend to induce chaos in our daily personal lives. Some folks experience much more chaos than others. In some families, chaos is quite normal, and without it, something would feel “wrong.”
We all know these families. Junior wrecks the car, and oh-by-the-way, he doesn’t have a license. There’s no insurance on the car, which is owned by his dad, who needs the car to get to work, which is far away. But the car is beyond repair, and the victims in the accident are suing dad. Now that dad starts arriving late for work, he’s fired, can’t find new work in this recession, and the family is no longer able to pay the rent on the apartment. They receive eviction notices and eventually end up at a shelter. Meanwhile, the teenage daughter of these parents becomes pregnant, the 16-year-old father of the baby is in jail, and she hasn’t been going to school because she doesn’t feel she has to anymore.
In a word, their lives are in “chaos.” And the story does not have a happy ending. In fact, the chaos will likely continue for generations until someone down the chain screams, “STOP THE MADNESS! IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!”
The American Heritage Dictionary defines chaos as: A condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
It can be interesting (for some of us geeks) to examine chaos in mathematical terms, but it’s pure hell when chaos strikes at our lives and inflicts “great disorder or confusion.” Especially if it’s in the long term.
But is chaos a necessary state of existence? Some families appear to thrive on it. Others deal with it in quiet desperation. Why does chaos strike at some families to a far greater degree than at others?
The source, I believe, of most of the chaos in our lives is not so much external. In my view, and in the view of many “success” authors, chaos is the result of chaotic thinking. A primer in spiritual law would tell us, “As within, so without.” If our thinking serves chaos, then chaos is all too happy to walk right into our lives and manifest itself in all its glory.
My math book about chaos defines and works with the concept of “chaotic attractors.” It also examines “stable equilibrium points,” which by definition attract stability. What kind of soul do we possess? Are we “chaotic attractors” — inviting, welcoming and nourishing chaos in our lives? Or are our souls points of “stable equilibrium” — an oasis of tranquility in a chaotic world?
If our lives are chaotic, how can we bring a semblance of peace and predictability into our existence? I don’t mean that we should strive to make our lives so predictable that we fall into a grinding rut, but rather that we aren’t running around like chickens with our heads cut off, putting out fires and reacting to emergencies throughout the day, every day.
In Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” he explains the four styles that people use to manage their lives. These four styles comprise four quadrants. Quadrant 1 is for activities that are “urgent and important.” He explains that the activities in this quadrant are “crises” or “problems,” and that Quadrant 1 consumes many people. Mr. Covey graphically depicts the lives of people who manage their lives in crisis mode:
“As long as you focus on Quadrant 1, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it dominates you. It’s like the pounding surf. A huge problem comes and knocks you down and you’re wiped out. You struggle back up only to face another one that knocks you down and slams you to the ground” (p. 152).
In other words, this is leading a chaotic life. How can we reverse this flow of energy that courses through our lives, possibly for decades, and very likely flowed through the lives of our ancestors — or at least the home we grew up in?
People who have transformed their lives from one of chaos to one of relative order and stability would say that it takes great discipline and self-education. There are no classes out there called “Chaos to Order 101.” It means reading and meditating on what we have read, and then implementing the incremental changes in our lives that will bring us to a life built on meaning and service to others, rather than on turbulence and constant “emergencies.”
One of my sisters uses “the metaphor of the pool” to describe the difficult process of changing the flow of energy in our lives. She recalls how when we were small children, we would be in the small, circular backyard swimming pool, all of us swimming in a circle until the resulting current would push us around with little further effort on our part. The “energy pattern” had been established. Then we would all simultaneously attempt to reverse direction. We all remember how difficult it was to do this. The circular current that had been established by our previous efforts was working against us, and only after struggling for a few moments were we able to successfully reverse direction, thereby creating a “new” energy pattern. Then we would repeat the process. None of us ever forget the metaphor of the pool, and it helps us explain to others the struggle involved in reversing energy patterns.
I can’t even begin to imagine the supremacy of the energy pattern when dangerous addictions are involved. The energy currents must be overwhelmingly powerful and seemingly reverse-proof.
So when it seems as if our lives are continually spinning out of control, let’s not blame the circumstances and events; let’s question the framework of our lives and its underpinnings in our thinking. And then let’s get to work, reading and studying whatever we can get our hands on to reverse those chaotic energy flows that run right through the center of our existence.
Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Fireside, Simon & Schuster, 1989.
— David Magallanes is the creator of his own enterprise, Real World Projects, a business primarily dedicated to building distribution outlets for highly reputable products that offer a healthier life and a more vibrant lifestyle. An emerging branch of Real World Projects is Edifiquemos, a Spanish language enterprise dedicated to teaching the Spanish-speaking how to create a profitable international (U.S./Mexico) enterprise with low investment and high earning potential. David may be available for speaking opportunities. To contact him and for more information, you are invited to visit and explore his web sites at www.realworldprojects.info and at www.edifiquemos.com