How to make things happen without forcing it
Creating order doesn’t require chaos to disappear
I’ve been learning about viruses lately, and somehow that turned into me thinking about how I’m living my life.
When viral components are inside a cell, there isn’t one thing directing every movement and putting every piece in the correct place. The pieces have particular shapes, charges, and chemical properties. They’re just tons of them bumping around in an environment that makes some interactions much more likely than others.
Wait…is this why I have so much trouble with habits?
I usually try to make things happen by forcing myself to do them. I decide I’m going to write every morning or exercise a certain number of times a week. Then something interrupts me, I miss a few days, and the whole thing starts to fall apart.
How weird. My life has disruptions all the time, but I keep making plans that only work if I behave perfectly.
What would happen if I focused less on controlling every action and paid more attention to the environment around it?
I’ve been calling it: “Giving things a soft bias”, which sounds slightly made up because it is.
A small change that makes something more likely without turning it into a rule. If I want to write more, maybe I don’t need to write exactly 7:00 every morning. But I could keep my notes nearby and make it really easy to strike when the iron’s hot.
I can still ignore them. I probably will sometimes. But the conditions are there when the impulse shows up.
The same thing applies to movement, boundaries, or how I spend my time. I can make fitness more convenient. I can leave some space before answering a request. I can make it easier to return to something without treating every interruption like I have to start my entire life over.
Obviously, some things need rules. Inspired action is useful. I don’t think I can leave a yoga mat on the floor and wait to become a yoga master.
But I AM curious about how often I use force because when alignment mattered more.
I keep trying to fit myself into systems that ignore how I naturally work, then assume I’m the problem when I can’t maintain them.
The virus thing has me wondering whether making something happen can begin with understanding the pieces. Their particular shapes. What they’re drawn toward. What they resist. The conditions in which they connect without needing to be pushed together.
I’m still making choices. I’m choosing the conditions.
And maybe this is closer to how nature works anyway. Order doesn’t require chaos to disappear first. Things move unpredictably, but they move within conditions that make some connections more likely and others nearly impossible.
Given enough time, those conditions create beatiful things. Stars form. Cells organize themselves. Viruses assemble. Living things grow into recognizable forms without every part being individually directed.
I think I’ve been treating chaos like something I need to eliminate before my life can begin.
But chaos, met with the right conditions, made everything I can see in front of me.
How do you usually create change in your life?