Dance Between Chaos and Order
In early 2022, I took one of my first international trips in years to Portugal. At the time, the pandemic still shaped everyday living. For me, after nearly two years of lockdowns and restrictions, I felt stagnant and plateaued in many areas of life.
While I was there, I started rereading 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, a book I had first read a few years earlier. This time, it hit differently.
One of the book’s central ideas is the dance between chaos and order:
Order is structure, predictability, routine, and security—the stable foundation you rely on.
Chaos is possibility, uncertainty, freedom, and change—the place where creativity grows and new things are born.
Too much order can become suffocating, even tyrannical, while too much chaos can spiral into anxiety and fear. A meaningful life requires navigating both in a delicate balance.
As I read the Overture of the book in Portugal, those ideas hit me like an epiphany.
I realized that from late 2020 through the end of 2021, my life had surprising order. Although the first half of 2020 had been chaotic, by the end of 2020 my life was stabilized as I settled into a new place and had a stable career. Everything became routine.
When I started traveling again, it created room for the unexpected. In Portugal, I met incredible people I normally would never connect with, people completely different from me. I had conversations that challenged my perspectives and exposed me to different ways of thinking. I was spontaneous and did things I never would have done before.
By the time I returned home, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a while: excitement about the future. A renewed sense of direction, and real resolve about where I wanted my life and career to go next.
The reframing of chaos as being just as important as order was a revelation that has greatly influenced my life since.