Is Your Life Complex Enough?

By: Chris Pace

As I navigate my way through my 40^th year, a lot of my day-to-day experience has me teetering on the edge of chaos and order; all in the pursuit of meaning. The Taoists might refer to this phenomenon as the Yin-Yang principle, I will simply refer to this cross-section of balance as the illuminated state or FLOW as it’s commonly been characterized in the 21^st century schema.

Whatever you choose to call it, I think we can all agree that there are certain tasks or events that require us to push outside our comfort zone to develop our next level of experience. The questions beg, of course… when and how do we know when it’s time to spread our wings and leap to the next great evolution of our experience?

What’s the next step?

Watch the following video. Bill Eckstrom offers, from personal experience, powerful insight into how adversity plays a role in how we grow.                   

As Eckstrom points out there are four Growth Rings we are all faced with.

1. Stagnation     – Follower or drone type existence
2. Order              – Complacency or comfort zone. Status Que     
3. Complexity    – Where you grow
4. Chaos            – The opposite of stagnation. Uncontrollable events

Our focus is on Order and Complexity and Eckstrom makes some compelling points about ORDER being the enemy of COMPLEXITY (growth).

Why is it important?

This past July 4^th marked the 243^rd Independence Day to be celebrated in America. For 243 years, we have continued to celebrate a day where we, as a budding, rebellious colony, made the decision to move into discomfort and fight the complacency or contentment that could have easily created a nation of mere tradition and status quo. Eckstrom describes this as stepping out of the status of Order (complacency) into the status of complexity (growth). It’s not my intention to speak out against any philosophical, political, historical view or belief, but I do mean to say one thing… what if the original colonies had simply accepted the statue que and continued to plod along with things as they were and accept an existence dictated by someone else. Where would we be today if they had?

The point is, we’re all going to experience pivotal points in our personal and business lives that require us to take stock of where we are and make the hard decisions. We can do one of two things . . . stay in our world of Order or chose to move to Complexity and grow. It’s your choice!

Complexity, with an occasional trip back to Order, is where you want to spend most of your time. As pointed out in the video there are three main ignition points for moving out of Order into Complexity. Those points are:

1.       Complexity is forced upon us (natural disaster, life event, etc…)

2.       Someone can help you ignite Complexity (coach, mentor, friend, etc…)

3.       You trigger it yourself (the illuminated state or FLOW)

Moving into the Zone 

Remember, in this context, COMPLEXITY is the state you’re in when your circumstances force you to engage, adapt, and grow so that you can reach a higher state of operation or existence. This could be as simple as choosing to put in work at the gym in efforts to live a healthier lifestyle or more drastically, an emergent situation plunges you into a state of duress where the only option is to overcome and come out of the situation a changed individual… we might call this the “resistant hero” paradigm.

The question is

What have you done to create COMPLEXITY in your life? 

There is a risk

Complacency often disguises itself as comfort: “Business is going well, why take on a new venture and risk losing what I have” or “I’m not the happiest I’ve ever been, but at least I’m not unhappy… why change?”

The ‘complacency risk’ is insidious because it tricks our minds into thinking that things will take an upswing without having to risk much if anything at all. The reality is, risks become blurred with inaction because situations, as they always do, change. It’s in this zone that seemingly variables do not change, and those participants get lost in the raging waters Stagnation. 

I’m not advocating for chaotic change; there’s certainly a lot of risk in that zone and while the return could be amazing, it’s more likely it won’t. I am, however, speculating that too much Order can create just as much disaster, it’s simply the mode of destruction that’s different.

The Challenge

My challenge to you is to take stock of your current environment, tally up your existing hopes and dreams, and try and map out some COMPLEXITIES to push yourself (or your business) to the next level. And don’t do it alone… there are plenty of friends, family members, and colleagues that are likely to jump into complexity with you and curate an illuminated experience to make your days richer, your relationships stronger, and your future brighter.