A children’s room and the current situation.

The way through the chaos goes only step by step

Imagine a well-used children’s room whose contents have approached the utterly equal distribution of matter according to entropy rules. You have decided to clean up together with your child. What is the first thing you say to your child? 

Imagine that you first suggest to him to create a strategy. You yourself have one in mind. Then, the sibling who comes along and asks, „what are you doing?“ contributes a third. A similar thing can be observed in politics today regarding finding solutions for our world, which is beset by several crises. 

Solution strategies such as gas price brakes or gas price caps are formulated. Each sounds reasonable, and there are heated arguments about its usefulness. 

Unlike the mess in a child’s room, however, the world’s chaos constantly evolves. And those who try to get a grip on the situation with different strategies simultaneously will further fuel the chaos. No one could have foreseen the mild temperatures of this month. All gas storage facilities are, therefore, full. As a result, acute gas demand has dropped, and gas prices are falling.

You with the „children’s room“ problem will instead say, „Let’s just get started. Right here in front! You pick out all the building blocks, and I’ll pick out all the Playmobil figures! And then we’ll go from there. “ 

Politics could do it the way you do it in the children’s room. Just start with the implementation of ONE strategy! After that, it would have to be evaluated how the chaos reacts. Only then can the second step be decided and implemented!

Since forecasts are impossible in chaos (gas prices in our current situation are an excellent example), the idea of first developing a plan is appealing but unrealistic. As in the fog, you can only drive by sight. 

In my everyday work as a systemic coach, I regularly experience that clients who find themselves in a crisis demand of themselves and me that a solution must be found quickly, neatly planned, if possible, with guaranteed success. But, instead, it is evident:

The path to a solution, to success, usually leads through the chaos.

Instead of looking for solutions now, we can learn to accept this and face the flood of data with curiosity and enjoy the changing interpretations. If we allow this to happen, let the uncertainty for a while, the „he“ solution will jump out at us.