Life never turns the way you expect it to. There's an order to it all, but the details are so minuscule and so convoluted, that trying to sort them all out and comprehend them is utterly beyond us and our technology. One of the cornerstones of our interaction with the world of the 21st Century (or, any century, for that matter) is the Chaos Theory. The order of the universe lies hidden within the chaos that arises from the limitations of our knowledge, to appear only like silhouettes of lovers on a window shade. The subtleties of matter and energy throughout the universe are unknowable to us in their entirety, and, even those aspects that we do know are subject to the limitations of our measuring systems. So long as there is the least imperfection in our human knowing, chaos will control our prediction of the future.
Success in life is almost always counter-intuitive. About 15 years ago, I decided to buy a motorcycle. To get my license endorsement, I had to take a course and pass both a written and driving exam. What most struck me about learning the basics of controlling a motorcycle is that it doesn't steer like a bicycle. As a kid, I often used to ride my bike 'no hands', leaning left to turn left and right to turn right. Oddly, on a motorcycle, you lean away from the direction of the turn. I still haven't got the physics of that straight in my head; all I know for sure — from personal experience — is that it works.
Sometimes I even remember that life works the same way. The 'intuitive' approach very often rewards us with exactly the opposite of the result we were hoping for (and, most often, anticipating). Here's a great example: applying persuasive techniques to encourage a system to change will almost always succeed only in motivating everyone to turn on you. If you do wield sufficient power to get the system to pay attention to you, you'll first be met with all the reasons why your approach won't work, then, to prove you wrong, the members of the system will make sure that any changes that do occur will be superficial and short-lived. I've often said that for a leader to change a system means that he or she has to do the radical changing, then enlist the system's help in promoting that change.
Confronting an opponent with force only makes that opponent stronger. That's a lesson that Asians learned many centuries ago, and still teach. It's also a lesson that we have yet to learn. To overpower others consists not in forcing ourselves on them, but, rather, in neutralizing their power by allowing them to expend it harmlessly. Sometime that means absorbing their blows.
The traditional approaches to the exercise of power no longer achieve their goals, either in the world, in a country, or in a family. Negative approaches like anger, hatred, revenge and punishment produce the opposite of their desired effect (as in Iraq, so in a rebellious child). The tighter we hold on to control, the more out-of-control a system will grow. The deeper our fear of an 'enemy', the more fearsome that 'enemy' will become.
Eventually each of us will have to learn the 'ropes' of handling the wildness of a life: we'll have to lean left if we want to go right, and vice-versa. Even then, if we learn our lesson really well, we'll discover that where we finally end up is nowhere near where we expected to. It will surely be entirely different from anything we imagined — better, but entirely different. If you want to be successful at this game called 'life', you're going to have to lay aside your expectations, and climb on to enjoy the ride!
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
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