The past ten years, I’ve had this thought time and time again: why is everybody trying so hard to control everything?
The disadvantages of doing it heavily outweigh the advantages. Both theoretically (based on research about our brains and bodies, for example) and practically (based on statistics or what people report).
Life should be messy.
As an extension, make your art messy—or, rather, allow it to be messy.
In this article, I want to (briefly) explain why and what that means.
What do you mean?
Many people have all sorts of routines for everything.
- “When I wake up, I do 30 minutes of running.”
- “When I write a book, I always do it in Software X and start with template Y.”
- “I always drink tea before going to bed.”
Routes and good habits are really good. I’m not saying people should remove all their good habits or any semblance of structure to their days.
But there are two issues.
- For many routines, it’s hard to judge whether it’s actually a good habit.
- Is Software X actually helping you write that book?
- Is that tea actually helping you sleep?
- Many people, especially in Western countries, go much further than this.
- They don’t just plan to exercise, they plan their exact exercise, down to the number of repetitions of their third set of push-ups.
- They don’t just drink tea, they drink an exact tea at an exacte timestamp in some exact amount.
- If you ask a friend if they want to hang out this weekend, they’ll show you their detailed calendar that’s already filled until next month.
Why do people do this? Partly because people want some familiarity or something to hold onto. They feel overwhelmed and in freefall if they don’t have structure or planning. That’s why I agree with having a general structure to your days or work.
But I’ve also learned, after studying human history and psychology a lot, that people have this innate desire to react to everything.
Why has history seen so much bloodshed and wars? Because somebody did something bad long ago, so the other person wanted revenge, which made the other other person want revenge again, and the cycle never ends. The cycle is still going strong today, with countries at war because of a list of “injustices” from the past centuries.
History shows that most wars were not because a group of people didn’t have enough food or land to sustain themselves, so they needed to take it away from others. They were just this cycle of “I must react, I must take revenge, I must do something and take control, otherwise I’m … weak?”
On a smaller scale, we can apply this theory to self-improvement. When a human notices something about themselves, they get the instant urge to do something about it.
Sometimes, people make up excuses and ignore it for a while, until it comes out all at once. At other times, people create structure and rules and routines for themselves to handle this.
Doing this for years and years leads you to a place where your entire days are mapped out to the second, your actions (and response to other people’s actions) predictable to a tee.
And this is bad because of that second reason: you don’t know if these habits are actually good. In fact, it’s highly unlikely that any habit is “always good”—in all circumstances, on all days, etcetera.
Life needs a balance of structure and variety
I’ll give a simple example.
I was told pull-ups were great for your back muscles. Being chronically ill, I always look for ways to stay strong and keep good posture, so I installed a bar in a doorframe and started doing them each day. Before going to bed, 20 pull-ups (10 with open palms, 10 with closed palms).
After doing this for a while, I’d become more muscular … in all the wrong ways.
To consistently do this habit, my body learned all sorts of “tricks” to make me go up and down. I used the wrong muscles. I favored the left side of my body heavily, almost exclusively training that. I filmed myself, and this was barely visible for an outsider. (The advice to do this routine actually came from a physical therapist who checked my technique the first few weeks.)
Now, this wouldn’t have been an issue if I’d done some pull-ups “once in a while”. Or if I’d moved the bar around, forcing me to reconsider my technique each time. But I did them identically every night. Same number of repetitions, same approach, same location, same everything.
A bad habit, when structurally repeated, is a negative spiral that slowly destroys you. (I am still trying to undo the damage this did, and fix my posture and muscle imbalance.)
The only way to prevent routine pushing you to a cliff, is to change it up. Make it messy.
Regularly change your exercises. Regularly change where you do them, or how, or how many.
Physical exercise is a simple and usually visible example, but this applies to everything.
- That writing software you always used? Yeah, it doesn’t support a few features that would have saved you 50% of your work on all those books you wrote. But you didn’t know, maybe you never know, because you stuck to your system for 10 years.
- That tea you always drink before bed? Yeah, it was useful when you still had that stressful job, but now it just makes it harder for you to sleep.
- That 30 minutes of running you do? Yeah, you always did the same route that has many slanted streets, murdering your ankles and leading to a long and serious injury. You would’ve been fine if you’d just ran a different route every other day.
As stated, most routines are good or bad in different circumstances, and this is hard to know or test. It’s certainly not consistent: the exercise that benefits me most now is different from the exercise that benefitted me most ten years ago.
So don’t get boggled down in endless routine and structure. Even if you picked the best habits with the most arguments supporting them … it will still hurt you if that’s all you ever do, day in day out, for many years.
Pick a general structure. For example, “I will immediately work a few hours when I get out of bed” That works for most people!
But don’t get more detailed. Don’t do the same work every day, in the same place, in the same way.
Make your approach messy. Make your approach friendly to change, variety, and “life getting in the way”.
Especially if you’re of the creative persuasion. Those messy moments, those unexpected changes, are exactly what gives you the best inspiration and leads to the best work.
Most things in life work themselves out
This is the second reason for my philosophy. I believe that this urge inside us to “react” (to “take revenge” or “take control”) is our downfall. It’s unnecessary. It leads to pain, endless cycles of war and injustice, and rarely to anything good.
So don’t do it.
Somebody insults you? Ignore it. It’s that simple. Feeling insulted is a decision, and you can decide not to.
Somebody before you takes the last of an item you wanted to buy? Ignore it. Let it be. Another item or another deal will land on your path. Perhaps a better one!
Your parents mistreated you as a child, and you keep thinking about that—getting frustrated and unfocused—every day? Forget it. It’s in the past, there’s no reason to think about or react ten years later.
Most things in life work themselves out. Go with the flow. Forget this urge to control or react. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished all the same.
In my view, you either solve a problem right now (when it presents itself) if you can, or you let it go entirely. Any middle ground won’t help you, even though it might feel good in the moment to write a passive-aggressive message to somebody who broke a promise.
You weren’t able to do all the items on your to-do list today? No worries!
Maybe you’ll do it tomorrow.
Or maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow and realize the items you didn’t do were a bad idea anyway! You just saved yourself time and effort, and gotten a better understanding of your problem as the result. (The saying “let me sleep on it” is absolutely true.)
Or maybe this moment, this one decision to let it be and stop working for the day, is the only thing that separated you from burn-out.
You don’t know. We’re not smart. We can’t predict the future. The world is way too complicated, every single inch of it, every single second of it.
So do what you can, then let things be. Most things will work themselves out one way or another.
Broadening our application
Terrible films
I am bored to death by many films coming out of Hollywood right now. (Also books to a lesser extent.)
Why? Because the stories are all forced to follow the same “formula”—that X-step-outline that is probably taught everywhere as the holy grail of storytelling. This means the stories are all the same, predictable, with nothing to actually say, nothing new to add.
This becomes even more clear in films written with a (usually “woke”) agenda. They want to make a hyperspecific point. So they structure the story—no matter how non-sensical or boring—to perfectly prove their point and add absolutely nothing else. No counterpoints, no other perspectives, nothing nuanced or imperfect.
The stories that actually interest me (and many others) are messy.
They’re the stories people still talk about 10 years later, discussing why a character did X, or what was the meaning of Y. They’re stories where some people see A as the hero, and some see B, and all those people will have learned something about themselves through watching that story.
Besides all the other arguments why putting a woke agenda in stories is terrible, this is another one. Any story that is too clean, too focused and streamlined, too formulaic, will just not matter at all to most people.
Show me the real-life, messy consequences of hate against people of a certain sexuality. Show it with characters who can be good and bad, who are believable enough that you see your best friend in them. Then you might actually bring the message home for some people, because your story rings true to life.
And life is messy.
Anything close to dating
Let’s get even more controversial. In recent years, there’s been lots of discourse about men approaching women, how they do it, what is and isn’t allowed, giving permission for things, etcetera.
Many women now believe that it is “assault” if a men merely approaches them. (And are, somehow, simultaneously surprised they have been single for their entire life.)
Some people would like to introduce forms or slips of paper where both people sign off before they touch, or kiss, or have sex. (Nothing as sexy as filling out forms.)
As a result, many young men around me—who are kind and would not even hurt a fly—have just given up. Even sending a text message is an issue. How dare you waste 3 seconds of a girl’s time? How dare you ask her on a date if she hadn’t given you permission to talk to her!?
In the end, this creates a world in which everyone is lonely and unhappy. Relationships (especially romantic ones and starting a family) are the strongest predictor for happiness and longevity, and overwhelmingly so. Yet people would rather imprison their lives with rules and order, than let things get a little messy.
If somebody touches your butt, and you don’t want it, you say “stop touching my butt” and they listen to that.
If somebody misreads the situation and gives you a kiss, you say “sorry, this isn’t what I’m looking for” and they listen to that.
That’s the ideal world. Not one where everything is wrong or controlled beforehand, nor anarchy of course.
Ask yourself: how did you get to know your best friends and/or partner? Was it a survey you all filled out? An algorithm? Or was it “I dunno, they were just kinda there when I had a flat tire once, and then we kinda became friendly, and then I was invited to their party one time, and I brought this other friend, and we kinda became a group of friends from that, I guess?”
Life is messy. Embrace it. Without messiness, we get nowhere.
Cancelling
Similarly, people are “cancelled” left and right for whatever people fancy. Often it’s not even true, or highly exaggerated, or something that isn’t illegal or wrong but just devilish in the eyes of certain people. And what do we do? We ruin their life, make sure they never get another job, just because they made one mistake.
Everyone has made mistakes in their life. The only reason we haven’t cancelled everyone, is because the others are doing a great job of keeping their past quiet and imprisoning themselves further. Or because the others haven’t had enough time yet to say one wrong thing.
We should, you know, turn these events into a story to tell and learn from it. We should keep the actor in their role, forcing them to better themselves and actually step over the mistake. I am more afraid of those who claim to be spotless and faultless, than those who’ve made thousands of messy mistakes and are still here.
The adult line in the sand
Or to take it further, in my final example, there’s this weird line drawn at the age of 18. A line that runs through all of society. Children’s books are supposed to not swear and not contain any themes anyone might find “not for their age”. Adult websites have this useless test if you can click the button “I am 18+” or not. A lot of work goes into giving an age rating to all pieces of media, which parents pretend is the word of god, but kids ignore entirely.Somebody is below 18? It’s technically illegal to sexualize them or have sex with them regardless of your age.
But once somebody turns 18? ANARCHY! Do whatever you want. This single birthday has obviously changed your entire being so you are now ready for all those dirty words and terrible concepts.
This is silly, of course. All this does is make people unprepared for what comes after. You’re shielding your kids from random stuff their entire life, so they are not ready when the shield is lifted.
You’ve wasted all that effort removing the messiness from your kid’s life, and now they aren’t equipped to handle the actual messiness of the rest of their life.
I’ve experienced countless films, bad words, websites, ideas, games, etcetera that were not for my age. None of that was a bad thing in any way. It showed me the truth of life from a young age, which meant I felt like an actual informed adult before I became one.
The same is true of everyone I know that didn’t have their childhood structured away. They actually feel like human beings with nuanced views, who can handle messiness or embrace it, before they even become 18.
In my eyes, we should just remove all barriers and shields. Let kids read good stories with a few swear words, if they want. Let kids know what sex is—a pretty crucial and core part of what it means to be human—before they even go to high school.
Life is messy. Embrace it.
How do we apply this in practice?
Well, my final paragraphs from the previous section already give one clue. Actual freedom. Remove countless rules, structures, censoring, everything. Let things be. Things will work themselves out. The messiness is what makes life enjoyable, what makes artists creative, what prevents a negative spiral to (negative) infinity.
Provide a general structure, but leave the details unknown.
Reconsider all your habits, ideas, and especially gut reactions to everything. Find all the spots where you’re needlessly removing freedom or imposing rules (on others or yourself), then just … don’t do it.
Regularly, on purpose, change your approach to stuff. Maybe exercising each morning after waking up is working great for you. Even so, change it up once or twice a week. It’s the only way to prevent accidentally destroying yourself by grinding bad habits or routines.
Many people tout the Pomodoro technique as some productivity miracle. Just as many people absolutely despise it because the relentless structure (specific timings for work + break) destroys all inspiration and creativity. It removes messiness, which is good for people whose lives are too messy, but bad for anyone else. (In case you’re curious: I gave it a shot so many times, but it never worked for me.)
Similarly, people will say you should go to bed at this specific time each day, or eat this exact amount of calories each day. Hopefully you now see why it’s all bullshit. Some days you’re hungrier or sleepier. People’s bodies are different, and they change each day too! Perhaps you were really inspired to write that next chapter, but oh well, too bad, it’s time to go to bed! Can’t deviate from my structure!
As always, though, I think it’s best to give some personal examples from the real world to support all this.
I generally write my to-dos for next week on a notebook page that is beside my laptop. But sometimes, I don’t. Not because I’m out of paper or anything, just to have variety. I write it on some other random paper. I keep my notes digitally for one week. Or I don’t write a to-do at all, if I have no deadlines coming up.
This is messy, yes. It has also led to countless inspired days of work and new perspectives on existing projects.
For years, it was my habit to immediately eat a bowl of yoghurt after I’ve woken up (and gone to work). It started as a habit to prevent skipping breakfast—something many people pretend is a major sin. As it goes, it turned into something I relied on. I felt hungry from the moment I woke up and couldn’t start my day without that bowl of yoghurt.
One day, I randomly changed it to just a bowl of water. It felt strange that first day. I did it again the next day—this time with an actual bottle of course—and it was absolutely fine. I wasn’t actually hungry. I didn’t need breakfast. I was thirsty when I woke up :p This random experimentation changed my habit from “eating way too much when I’m not actually hungry” to not doing that and drinking enough water.
Once upon a time, I needed to buy a new smartphone. My old one completely broke—unexpectedly—so I was in a hurry. I couldn’t go this long without a phone! I researched a cheap one that would work, and was ready to click the button to confirm the purchase.
But life is messy. My brother came in and just made a remark—which I can’t remember exactly—which made me pause. And so I waited.
I realized I didn’t really need that phone. I barely used my previous phone! I didn’t need loads of features, I didn’t need to constantly check it and waste time. Suddenly I realized how much time I was wasting each day.
One or two weeks later, that same phone was suddenly on sale. I was able to buy it for nearly half the price—plus a free SD card with 16 GB storage!—and so I did.
The final example is perhaps the best example of all my points. Simply “not (immediately) reacting” led to a much cheaper purchase and a reevaluation of my habits for good. Allowing life to be messy, and to be influenced by it, randomly changed my path into something that also worked out fine.
Conclusion
The conclusion is simple: life should be messy. Find a balance between structure and chaos that allows this.
You meet people and fall in love through messiness.
You get unexpected opportunities or find new perspectives through messiness.
You get creative inspiration through messiness. (I can’t tell you how many times I was stuck with a game, let it be for three days, and then I suddenly found myself at a game night, where I played another game that had the EXACT mechanic I needed to improve my own game! Same with books.)
You prevent getting stuck in a downward spiral (consciously or not) through messiness.
You find laughter, joy, good stories through messiness.
Allowing the messiness has certainly made me more creative, productive, and healthy in general. It’s such a … freedom to just not react to everything, not be stressed out by everything, believe that things will work out (and they usually do!) if you let them.
I believe it was Kant who lived his life to ridiculous structure, believing that this was the true meaning of freedom—the freedom to plan and rule your own life to the second. In our day and age, it seems as if everyone has started to agree with him, drowning themselves in planners, to-do lists, Pomodoro techniques, and fixed routines.
Maybe he was right. Studying human history reveals that our modern times are generally the most “free” that civilization has ever been, while daily life is more structured, organized and mapped out than ever.
But there’s a difference between freedom and happiness, between freedom and productivity, between freedom and living your life. I believe you must cast aside most structure to actually achieve all the other things.
Hopefully this was interesting and understandable. I’m just spewing my thoughts and feelings here as they come. I didn’t plan to write this article tonight, or ever. But I came up with the idea during dinner, thanks to a tiny remark from someone else, and I went with the flow.
Let life be messy,
Tiamo Pastoor