Why We Overestimate Chaos and Underestimate Ourselves

Chaos looks scarier from afar than it feels up close.

Or at least, that’s something I’m realizing.

Before something hits — a trip, a schedule change, a responsibility spike, a disruption to your home, a shift at work — you imagine the worst.
You imagine overwhelm.
You imagine things breaking.

But when you’re actually inside the moment…
you just start responding.

Not perfectly.
Not elegantly.
But instinctively.

The truth is most of us overestimate the chaos and underestimate our capacity.

We imagine ourselves brittle when we’re actually flexible.
We imagine ourselves fragile when we’re actually resilient.
We imagine ourselves unprepared when we’re stronger than we give ourselves credit for.

Chaos isn’t the enemy.
Panic is.
Storytelling is.
Catastrophizing is.

Because chaos is just movement — and humans were built for movement.

The older I get, the more I’m learning this:

Chaos doesn’t break me.
It reveals me.

And more importantly —
it reveals the parts of me I’ve ignored because routine kept them quiet.

Sometimes you need a disruption to see the structure inside you.

If this resonated with you, would you share this?