When people say they like chaos - avoiding?

[Ginger Maynor]

When people have chaotic lives and say they actually like it, do you think they are creating chaos purposely in order to avoid dealing with difficulties in their lives?

I find that some people always say they are soooo busy, but in fact they seem to purposely create it. Instead of scheduling engagements with friends in advance, do it at the last minute when something opens up because someone else cancelled. They can't stand to have 1-2 hours unscheduled.

They show up late for coffee because they squeezed in an errand to home depot. It seems usually they would run their errands after meeting with friends when they had more time.

They can't focus on an errand at hand. They call me in line when they are at the grocery store or picking up their child from school.

I actually had one of these friends tell me she liked the sound of a jack hammer while we were having lunch one afternoon at an otherwise lovely outdoor cafe.

I think they create chaos because it gives them distractions from certain realities they choose to not face. Any other thoughts?

[naturesflow]

If one is a scattered in focus person it will be noticed. There reasons are their own. There are those who function in chaos rather well because that is all they know of their world to be in it like this. Often those patterns are related to the early foundation of their own lives. Many families have dysfunction and chaos so children learn early on how to manage and be themselves in al that.

Personality type plays into this but environments do condition the personality as one so I don't like saying that is how it is and always will be, but rather every one has room to build deeper focus and be more present with others and themselves.

I suppose noise could be seen as a symbolic "drowning" out what doesn't want to be heard. It can be an unconscious thing where it is a conditioned pattern. Again the early life of what was moving, happening and not managed more effectively with focus will affect this. A very loud external noise might have been a pleasant place to focus on if one is in a very loud abusive environment. For children parents yelling and fighting even without abuse can create disconnection and so the child turns to something to build feelings of belonging in other ways. The memories of those times play out later in life in so may ways as patterns of comfort.

I don't think you can blame one thing for anything that is, in this life.

People are conditioned and show themselves as they are. So I think understanding is a the deeper awareness you can gain from this. In that way of being, you can practice being more present with what is too.

Busyness and moving all the time can certainly dull the senses in ways we don't want to notice. That would be true I am sure. Avoidance could also come into this. Not wanting to connect in certain ways and only in some could be seen as not wanting to face something in themselves. There are reasons for this too. Timing and willingness, readiness and whether the subconscious is arising to show something more.


You offer some good questions and reflections in your post. It is something I had to build in myself deeper to learn I didn't have to remain so distracted and disconnected from myself for many many years. So in some ways I see myself as the potential of change in this issue. I was pretty bad. Fear was my issue, fear of so much in myself and life itself.

Making time to be present is a beautiful thing as I have learned. Being able to stay more focused on what is before me is something I wouldn't change for the world now. It allows me so much more time, flow and focus to be and connect deeper.

Finding your own deeper connection in yourself naturally extends itself outward when your ready to find it.


I think its a great thing that schools now are teaching mindfulness and meditation in schools, it may only be a small aspect of their day, but at least it gives them some introduction to how change can come from within themselves more readily in the chaos, to build some measure of focus.

[firstandlast]

Perhaps, people just like these things; perhaps there is joy to be found everywhere-- Perhaps those things once revered as the path, cannot sustain the whole garden on the path without losing the path itself--

Perhaps, people can more easily see themselves in bigger waves; perhaps people thrive better in different circumstance-- Perhaps unity must include all there is to be unified--

perhaps in this way, it is the others whom are zen like or positive whom are destructive, vile, and avoiding-- Perhaps such there is two sides to the same coin-- Perhaps transcendence is inclusive--

[Lorelyen]

When people have chaotic lives and say they actually like it, do you think they are creating chaos purposely in order to avoid dealing with difficulties in their lives?

Not really. No. No more than someone who is sad is using self-pity to nurture a kind of false affection toward them. In a minority of cases it could be so.

I've met a few people who lead chaotic lives and it's usually because they're disorganised. Their priorities are not set to order their lives.

You'll find people here extolling the virtue of "living for the now" or "the moment" which, if actualised, would lead to their lives being chaotic...unless their lives are exceptionally linear - because living for now only precludes planning among other things.

I find that some people always say they are soooo busy, but in fact they seem to purposely create it. Instead of scheduling engagements with friends in advance, do it at the last minute when something opens up because someone else cancelled. They can't stand to have 1-2 hours unscheduled.
As a generalisation (which is rarely useful, but still...) people fall into one of two categories:
task based - they need to keep busy doing things, any things - it permeates most workplaces. These people may have schedules which they may not want upset because it's about finishing a task and starting the next one. Sometimes they nest tasks, getting diverted from one to carry out another before getting back to the first;
and
goal based - they work toward a goal/target and when they achieve that, look toward another target. If their schedules are upset it's because they're distracted from their pursuit.


♫

[Rayen]

I think "naturesflow" hit the spot. I think people are just used to something always being that way, that they don't know what silence and relaxation and living in the now really is. It's important to find, truely find, time for yourself. To look into yourself and find reality.

[Greenslade]

I think they create chaos because it gives them distractions from certain realities they choose to not face. Any other thoughts?Why don't you ask them? Which realities are they distracting themselves from? That somehow scheduling one's Life makes one.... what? Better, more Spiritual...??

I'm one of those 'chaotic' people. I very much Live 'in the now' with my flexibility, spontaneity, tolerance and peace of mind and those things mean more to me than any schedule. When there is nothing to keep there is nothing to fret over keeping or not, and my schedules tend to be as transitory as the wind - and not always through my choice. If I need time to reflect then I take it as and when, if I need a moment of quiet and solitude it's there.

Being present is at odds with a scheduled future.

[lemex]

Unimportant. Should we be making judgment of a good or bad feeling of what what we see about life versus what the person sees. It's just we don't do it. Both are ok. It's all good, isn't it. Actually this kind of energy and person might evidence the person very action oriented and able to succeed through the talent of being adaptable where another might not be able. They might do very well in business for instance able to tackle problems that might arise and make quick and accurate decisions. We all have our strengths and weaknesses do we not. What they see as productive another may not like. It may have value to in ways we don't know. Spirituality is the question? Accept people for who they are in this test of self.