Non Linear
Notes
Claim
Many things in life, including life itself, are not linear.
Explanation
Linear means that things, events, time follows a known and simple patterns that we can predict in advance. We would have loved life to be so, because we are Humans compulsively seek patterns and meaning even in chaos. We hate Uncertainty creates anxiety when knowledge and control are incomplete and wish that life would be a stable trend going upwards. However, it rarely has a logic behind it, nor a clear linear path. In contrast, non-linearity means that the line might go up or down, curve in a weird way, or even split into multiple lines. Instead of one clear path, we get a tangled spaghetti bowl.
Why it matters
Non linearity forces us to be flexible, patient, and optimists. Since we can't know in advance how things will turn out, we need to constantly adjust our behavior and our Expectations shape wellbeing through the gap between desires and reality so that we won't give up before our efforts pay off, while also aligning ourselves with the natural pace of reality.
Examples
There are however some non linear things that still follow a relatively expected pattern. For example Repeated actions yield exponentially increasing returns over time has a non linear pattern. Things that happen beneath the surface and then suddenly bursts out with great presence. At first progress is low or even flat, but with time it increases exponentially.
Similarly, some things follow a seasonal pattern. For instance vacations are not equally divided throughout the year, rather it is centered around holidays and seasons so we can reasonably expect when they will occur.
Supporters
The only certainly is that Life is change - nothing remains constant, so we can't expect life to progress in a straight line.
Opposers
We will fail, we will change our mind, unexpected things will happen, so we can never know our path in advance prediction, only at hindsight at best.
Open questions
Visual
Overview
🔼Topic:: Self-Regulation and Change ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::