Best Advice I’ve Ever Received, Part 1

This is the first part of a series on the best advice I’ve ever received. Over the next four weeks, I’ll write about statements that have altered my life and inspired me for years. Although it’s impossible to rank their importance, I will attempt to count them down, Casey Kasem style.

“And coming in at #4 is…..”

Embrace the Chaos 

Five years ago, when my son was two months old, I was about to give my first concert since his birth. 

Right before it, the sitter called in sick. 

My entire body tensed up when I got the call and I felt instantly queasy. There is only one person in the whole orchestra who plays my part so I couldn’t just not show up. But when you are the only parent in your child’s life, you can’t just not show up. I started making frantic phone calls.

My friends Liz and Eric Stinaff (who understand as avocational musicians) offered to take care of my son so I could still play the concert. They already had four kids in various stages of running, toddling and crawling all over their house. And I walked in with a screaming two-month old, looking like a ball of nerves.

As I handed him my son, Eric looked at me and stated, as only a quantum physicist can: “Embrace the Chaos.”

It rang immediately true to me. It’s a basic tenet of Buddhism. The more we fight something, the more power it has. Accepting that life is going to contain some chaos means that we can laugh during the craziness and savor the fleeting moments between storms. None of it can possibly last anyway.

I’ve called that advice to mind almost every way for five years now. Every day, I work on embracing the chaos. There is certainly no shortage of it!

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