C is for Chaos

Amid the chaos just be.

We humans are a silly lot. We try so hard to control things that we have no control over. We try to control things that aren't even important for us to control. We like to be in charge. Then we get anxious and aggravated.

Life comes flying at us from all different directions and we try to organize it. We plan; we schedule; we make agendas. We build houses and garages to keep all our orderliness in one place only to reorganize and clean them on a regular basis. We even try to force nature to conform to our obsessive need for control with our well manicured lawns and geometrically skewed gardens.

The thing is, the thing we seem to forget, is that the axis of life is chaos. It's a messy business we've got going here - some of that is our fault, some of it isn't. Regardless, it just is.

Somewhere along the way we've forgotten how to separate ourselves from the chaos. We've forgotten how to just be.

A couple of weeks ago I was scrambling to get things done. Construction workers across the field were making tremendous noise. I wanted to scream. Then I had this vision of my life being sort of like a hidden objects game. I can drive myself nearly insane looking for objects buried in a picture. Sometimes I have to remind myself that if I just stop searching so hard, sit back and take in the picture as a whole, sometimes the things I'm looking for jump out to be recognized. Even if they don't, at the very least, I'm not letting the game control me.

Chaos. It's there and you're there, but you don't have to be part of it. Take time to sit back and just be. After all, the only thing we can control is ourselves. Sometimes.