Solo walks in nature can turn into a whirlwind of ideas.

It was sunny, I was sitting on a bench and this woman with her dog walked past me. The dog was munching on a rubber ball and looking at me, it suddenly stopped and let the ball drop. It just stood there excitedly wanting to jump on me while the woman tried to steer it away.

Then she called him by his name “c’mon Chaos, let’s go”.

That word, chaos caught my attention.

Back to last year when I got Viking runes tattooed…

Now, because I’m a nerd, when deciding on which runes I wanted to get (there are 24), I read a book to get a better understanding about the whole thing, the meanings, the story, all the good stuff.

Hearing the dog’s name like that out of the blue, made me want to to refresh my memory. Here’s what the book says specifically about the “Chaos rune” that’s now tattooed on my left index finger:

Hagalaz signifies these forces of chaos that cannot be controlled…You cannot control or “fix” this interference—in other words, resistance is futile. While this may be a frustrating time, know that your course is being corrected for reasons beyond your understanding. You may be being forced into taking a new approach, which will become clear with patience and perseverance, as well as an ability to analyze your situation without attachment to the outcome.

 

Important shifts are taking place for you, whether materially, emotionally, or spiritually. But for new creation to occur, what is old must be dismantled.

It sparked some thoughts.

When I moved from Italy to the UK 2 years ago to start my own freelance copywriting business and basically a new life, I felt like I had to learn to navigate into chaos.

At that time I’d never thought I’d end up working as a UX designer for a remote agency with new amazing people. It required jumping on opportunities, learning new skills and growing as a person.

It’s been the same lately. While I love what I’m doing and the lifestyle I’ve created, I hear the calling of something exciting out there. Exciting but unknown, yet.

The unknown part, makes it often difficult and stressful to deal with.

When we think of the word “chaos” we usually jump to its more common meaning of disorder and confusion, but what if chaos was  instead the springboard for positive transformation to happen?

In physics chaos is defined as: “the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random”. And according to quantum mechanics theories, endless realities are available to us at any given time.

So what if chaos was just what those infinite, unpredictable possibilities or paths look like, all randomly jumbled together? 

We’d just have to pick one.

I think it’s a more useful way of seeing it.

It’s like being thrown into Dragon Ball’s Room of Spirit and Time where Goku forcedly locks himself to train whenever he’s reached a plateau.

We all end up doing time in there at some point in our lives.

In the Hyperbolic Time Chamber you can get one year worth of intense training in one day (gravity is ten times that of the Earth and temperature fluctuates rapidly between -40°C and 50°C). It’s hard as fuck, but worth it.

We’re not aware of it and we waste it.

There’s no clear roadmap to navigate chaos, but I’ve learned some things that make it more interesting and fun:

• Accept your situation and don’t resist it. Stick with your training, no matter how hard it is. You’re probably only at 40% of what you can accomplish.
• Be patient, perseverant and detach from any outcome. Learn to love the work and the process.
• Let go of anything that’s holding you back from spotting new opportunities and find a new approach. The old way of doing things won’t work.

When we have no idea how things are gonna pan out, it doesn’t mean life is a mess only because we cannot see what’s in front of us.

It’s just that we have yet to narrow down on a few of those endless possibilities we are presented with.