What is this muddly muddle? Is it Chaos? Is it Clutter? Is it fog?
Trick or Treat?
Well! Before I bring in my story, let me open the window for you to the platform I am standing on. Maybe not standing, but on a continuous discovery for my space and place. Who is this strange woman doing the talking?
How the courageous woman and her audacious demand of new institutions — institutions for mood management, relationship management, and how to raise less damaged children — slipped from her first children’s book Nooh Finds His Lost Whisker, clear thoughts of “Noodlie Moodlie assemble right… Red, Yellow, Blue, and White!” iinto that dark Muddly Muddle zone, and she couldn’t write for many months.
What I know is that here I am, back out of the Muddly Muddle, with my story of muddle.
If you are wondering about my language, I urge you to read along; this is one of the times when I and my lingo are exploring the uncharted zone with you.
Excuse me! What is this muddly muddle, again? Is it Chaos? Is it Clutter? Is it fog?
He who gives you many dreams is a great master, and the foggy weather is such a master! ― Mehmet Murat ildan
When I was a little girl, young and excited with life, I was laboring on my dream of seeing places. I don’t even remember how many times the vehicle of the house, my dad’s bicycle, caught my pajamas and plopped me down into the muddle.
Whether I cursed the pits or screamed at the bicycle’s manly design, the answer from my mom was the same: Keep your mind on balance, not the muddle; you will learn to avoid the muddly pits.
Eventually, I learned to navigate the muddly pits. And just then, another facet of muddle came into my life.
My dad approached the best school in the city for my admission; this school prepares the children for a world beyond cultural boundaries.
“I can’t give her admission. Her English is little, and she would not be able to absorb a bigger worldview that our school offers,” the principal said. My dad, a man with big dreams for his children, responded, “Lotus grows, glows, and radiates the sweet fragrance in any muddle, without catching a particle of mud onto it. Give her a chance, and she will be an example for many others that how to tread the muddle and bring expansion in life.”
I was admitted and a 15-year-old dreamer learned to dream even bigger Muddle is the mess of my life, and I need to develop skills to tread through the muddle.
Muddle is the temporary mess of life, and we need to develop skills to tread – trick or treat – through the muddle.
More than two decades in that definition of the muddle, and I became the parent. I loved my work and financial freedom as much as I wanted to be present to my daughters.
I worked a full-time 40 hours week plus 10 hours of commute time; I was dropping and picking up girls from daycare, taking care of the kitchen and laundry while trying to guard my dreams.
Vanilla. Strawberry. Nutty chocolate. Americano. You speak the flavor; I would have got the language feedback in that flavor in my different roles in the corporate world.
I started to learn the language. Slowly but unwillingly, I learned to speak with others’ tongues and the theories of what others expect somebody to talk about. My words sounded as brass and tinkling cymbal to my ears. Word begot words. More words. But my inner muddle stayed.
My well-wishers poured the pile of advice dust on me: you shall focus on building your network; socialize every weekend and make sure to carve out time for fulfilling relationships; look young — go to a 90-minute yoga class every day, drink green juice and eat salad until you can’t have it anymore; use your kids’ swimming classes time to listen to a podcast.
I mean, really? When am I supposed to sleep, let alone do the work I love and make a living?
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t put different parts of my life into these neatly packaged compartments. I called up my mom and asked how to raise my daughters while working full time? “You have to go through this phase, and every parent needs to go through this,” she answered.
I will dishonor my privilege if I say that I went through that muddly phase like a pro. No. It wasn’t easy, and my parents have been my strength and support in raising my girls, but the new mom and ambitious woman in technology unclogged the muddle acumen further.
Fast forward today, 18 years of parenting, 21 years of a woman in technology working with diverse cultures, languages, geographies, the muddle keeps showing up, and the common one is self-doubt.
It is easy to doubt yourself because you look around at the structures and community of notions held by other intellectuals, and they make you blush with guilt.
We all need someone wiser, older to tell us that we aren’t crazy after all, that what we’re doing is all right. And when we don’t find the one around, the moment is difficult, a dreadful exercise, a terrible treading of the muddle.
All right, hell, exactly humane! How do you respond to your muddles💭? Which option do you choose🤔? The treat of expansion❄️? The trick of avoidance💨? Have you found another way🆕?