So what are we going to do?

We can moan about how hard things are – we all do it.

Or we can use these same things as means and opportunities for finding a better future – to be honed by the trial: who we are and what we do.

There are things that can destroy us – I don’t mean these things.  These are the abyss, chaos, but the edge of chaos is something else:

‘The edge of chaos is a condition, not a location.  It is a permeable, intermediate state through which order and disorder flow, not a finite line of demarcation.  Moving to the edge of chaos creates upheaval but not dissolution.  That’s why the edge of chaos is so important.  The edge is not the abyss  It’s the sweet spot for productive change.’**

Better rarely comes easily or via a shortcut.  Easy lulls us into asking the wrong questions.  Hard makes us ask deeper, better questions, and there’s always more than one to be asked.

(*Bob Dylan‘s song, which I first heard sung by Bryan Ferry.)
(**From Richard Pascale, Mark Millemann, and Londa Rioja’s Surfing the Edge of Chaos.)