My life is chaotic. 

On any given day I probably have an average of 2 near misses of severe injury, walk into 3 pieces of furniture and forget at least one vital thing before I leave the house, or get off the bus, or leave work. 

I am chronically clumsy. 

To the point where I was banned from using the peeler at work because I cut my fingers twice in my first two weeks on the job. 

I hate washing dishes, so most days they pile up next to the sink while my life rushes on past. My laundry waits for days and the postcards I wrote to all my friends and family last Christmas, lay waiting in a drawer to never be sent. 

You see, chaos is inevitable – maybe more so in my life but in yours I’m sure as well. How often do you add something to your to do list only to find it still on there a month later? I’m beginning to think that control is an illusion and embracing this kind of chaos might be the way forward. 

Chaos teaches us more than comfort ever will, we all know this. We are constantly encouraged to broaden our horizons and “step outside your comfort zone”, yet we are never taught what to do when the chaos starts creeping in to the comfort zone. Chaos teaches creativity, problem solving, critical thinking (something kids these days seem to be allergic to). When things go tits up, you realise where your priorities truly lie. And most of all, the best stories are ALWAYS full of chaos. 

However, when I say we should learn to thrive in quiet chaos I’m not talking about big disastrous events that feel like the end of the world but you’ll laugh about later (though learning to thrive here would be equally as rewarding). I’m talking about the kind of chaos that seeps in to our everyday lives: the misplaced car keys and forgotten bin days, the panic of a missed alarm or the frustration of burnt toast. You have the power to let these things bother you or not – and my gosh is life better when you just don’t give a shit. 

To be caught in chaos is an opportunity. It pushes your limits and tests your understanding of yourself in ways you’ll never know without embracing it. This is a kind of quiet chaos that creeps up on you and it is far more valuable than you realise, for when a bigger storm arrives wouldn’t you rather be more prepared? 

I encourage you to let go of control – just a little bit. If your kitchen doesn’t quite look like a showroom today, it’s ok. If your calendar is a mess and you’re struggling to keep up, it’s actually ok. If your bus is delayed and you’re running late, it really is ok. It’s a beautiful thing to be human yet society has made it seem like that’s not good enough – which is ridiculous. Making mistakes, not being perfect, living in quiet chaos is a beautiful thing so decide right now to start letting it be. 

Imagine a robot and a human asked to plant the same field of flowers. The robot would measure every inch, each seed placed at exactly the same distance. Rows perfectly straight, colours grouped, nothing overlapping – efficient, predictable, controlled. 

Meanwhile, the human would kneel in the dirt and scatter seeds by instinct. Some flowers too close together, some growing taller than the rest, colours clashing in ways that somehow work. Patches of the field would be dense and wild and others would be infrequent and breathing. It wouldn’t be symmetrical or exact, but it would feel alive. 

The robot would create order, the human would create a meadow. 

I think my goal in life is to feel as alive as possible and were I given the choice of which field of flowers to have in my garden I would pick the wildflower meadow any day. 

I recently went on a 3 day camping trip with a friend and it didn’t quite go as I expected. By the time we were driving home I felt frustrated and impatient as I had done all of the driving and cooked and cleaned myself. This unsettling feeling, as uncomfortable as it was, was teaching me that you don’t actually need everything to go “right” to enjoy it. It was a brilliant trip and some fabulous memories were made and I wasn’t about to let this feeling change how much I had loved the rest of it. 

When I returned from the trip I took my car for a service and found out it needed $2000 worth of repairs! This meant that the couple I bought the car from had ripped me off which was understandably not what I needed. But something I live by is “money comes back, time doesn’t”. So, I booked in the repairs, started setting money aside and knew that when I got my car back it would be in the best possible condition for me to start a half lap around Australia. I figured out what insurance I needed, registered the car and am now ready to go! All of this in a foreign country, by myself. 

Its chaos. Explaining it to my colleagues at work they say things like “that’s such bad luck” or  “you poor thing”. However, I don’t see it that way at all. More than anything this experience has taught me that I am much more capable than I give myself credit for and I strongly believe we should start celebrating these small personal wins a whole lot more. That night I went for a drink after work as a little congratulations to myself. 

So you see, chaos can be beautiful. Those little ‘human errors’ are what make us unique and separate us from the ever growing world of AI and technology. Next time your dishes pile up, remind yourself to take a moment to breathe before you add unnecessary stress to your life. Embrace the chaos, learn to thrive in it, and believe me, you’ll feel more alive than ever. 

~ Teya