The other day I was on a long-haul flight to the US and before take-off, the pilot started his welcoming comments by saying “thanks for the coffee” to the rest of the crew. For some reason it made me think about order and chaos (sitting on a plane with few distractions is a good breeding ground for deeper chains of thoughts anyways).

Life is about order and chaos. Enough order to serve basic needs, enough chaos to not make it unnecessarily dull, repetitive and boring. Order is the foundation, chaos is venturing into the unknown.

This can be applied to so many areas. When Emily and I were celebrating our marriage with friends and family, this has been our approach as well. A weekend designed with enough structure so people feel safe and have their basic needs met, enough chaos so interesting things can emerge and people can enjoy themselves, not feeling that they are forced into a tight corset of what it means to take part in a wedding party.

Seemingly, life crises often evolve around an imbalance of order and chaos. Too many years doing the same over and over again makes humans hate their circumstances. Bureaucracies, smart marketing and various other factors made us believe that life is primarily about order, when that’s only one side of the equation.

Life is a daily-calibrated balance of order and chaos.