When Discipline Meets Disorder

I woke that morning believing discipline would save the day.

Schedules were ready, meetings planned, devotions timed. But by mid-morning, everything I relied on collapsed. The house filled with noise, laughter, and distraction. What should have been order became chaos. My inner voice whispered, You’ve lost control.

I blamed no one, yet disappointment hung over me. I had done everything right, structured, responsible, focused, and still, nothing felt right. My rhythm was gone. John Maxwell once wrote that leadership ability sets the lid on effectiveness. That morning, my lid was obvious. My discipline could manage tasks, but not my frustration.

Stephen Covey’s Put First Things First teaches us to prioritize what matters most. But what happens when everything feels urgent, and nothing feels meaningful?

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang are not opposites but complements. Order and disorder need each other. Yet at that moment, I saw only one side. I fought chaos as though it were failure.

It reminded me of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Malaysia’s chaos forced reform, new systems, new discipline, new humility. Pain reshaped resilience. That morning, my personal economy was in recession. My structure had been tested, and its cracks were showing.

A Day That Doubted Itself

By noon, the day felt foreign. I had missed my morning devotion, the one ritual that steadied me. My wife invited me to join her department for lunch. I went, reluctantly, telling myself to go with the flow, though every part of me wanted to withdraw.

The conversation at lunch turned intense. The women spoke about marriage, roles, expectations. My wife, ever passionate, voiced her views about what a husband should be. The others disagreed. I felt the atmosphere tighten, not from hostility but from judgment. I reminded everyone gently that each family breathes its own air. No two homes share the same weather. Still, the discussion spiralled on, and I quietly excused myself.

Driving home, frustration returned. I had done my best to be patient, yet peace felt out of reach. Then came the unexpected classroom, a car ride with my son, Aden.

I told him that the Bible commands parents to discipline their children, yet also warns fathers not to provoke them. It even calls for the hearts of fathers and children to turn toward each other. Three truths, seemingly impossible to hold together. I drew an intersection in the air. “Here,” I said, “is where life happens, not on one side or the other, but right in the middle.” He nodded, thoughtful but quiet. That image stayed with me.

Back home, I picked up a book I had wanted to read for months. It described the seasons of life, spring for planting, summer for perseverance, autumn for harvest, winter for rest. As I read, I realised I was in a winter moment. Not failure, just frost. A season meant for reflection, not acceleration. You cannot harvest during a storm.

NASA engineers once said that the near-disaster of Apollo 13 saved more lives than any perfect mission. Chaos exposed weaknesses success would have hidden. My frustrations were Apollo 13 moments, uncomfortable, necessary, formative.

The Lesson of the Intersection

Evening brought a new rhythm. I picked up Aden again and asked if he wanted to swim. He hesitated; his brothers were out for a birthday celebration, and he felt left out. Yet he said yes. That small decision changed the day.

At the pool, I left him to play while I went to the gym. When I returned, I saw him swimming alone, cheerful and calm. For years I had feared he could not be by himself, but there he was, content in solitude. It struck me that we were learning the same lesson at different depths. He was learning peace in solitude. I was learning peace in noise.

After my laps, I invited him to the sauna. He hesitated again, wanting to stay, yet curious to follow. I told him to choose freely. He chose presence. Inside the quiet heat, we talked. I told him our strengths were opposite: he loved crowds, I loved calm. Each of us was called to learn the other’s strength. “My chaos,” I said, “is when the room is full. Yours is when the room is empty.” He understood.

That conversation reminded me of Maxwell’s Law of Process: leadership develops daily, not in a day. Growth often hides in moments that feel unproductive. The pool and sauna became classrooms. What workshops could not teach, silence did.

The book’s metaphor of seasons deepened my reflection. Spring teaches initiative, summer endurance, autumn gratitude, winter renewal. Malaysia’s monsoon works the same way, flooding one field to feed another. Every downpour has direction.

Pixar once faced similar turbulence. Toy Story began as chaos, filled with rewrites, rejection, and uncertainty. Yet from that disorder emerged a studio that reshaped global storytelling. Innovation and clarity are both born in confusion.

Spiritually, I thought again about hearts turning, father to child, child to father. It is the same dynamic as leadership, not domination but resonance. The Stoics called it Amor Fati, to love your fate, not merely endure it. In Purposebility’s language, Right soil. Right seed. Right season. Clarity cannot be rushed. It must be grown.

Embrace the Moment, Lead Through the Mess

By nightfall, the day had transformed, though nothing outside had changed. The house was still noisy, the tasks unfinished, yet peace had returned. I was no longer fighting for order. I was finding it within.

Swimming had become a metaphor. Water resists nothing, yet carries everything. Leadership is the same. The best leaders do not fight the current. They learn to move with it.

As I watched Aden play, I thought of the Petronas Towers, symbols of precision and beauty. Beneath them lies a foundation deeper than most people imagine. Stability below allows grace above. Leadership works the same way. What the world sees as calm is sustained by unseen depth.

That morning, my leadership lid was emotion. By evening, the lid lifted, not because the world calmed, but because perspective widened. Growth had happened invisibly, like pressure turning coal into diamond.

Later that night, I watched my children negotiate gaming time on the big projector. What I once saw as wasteful now looked like teamwork, communication, negotiation, laughter. Even play had purpose when viewed with clarity.

Before sleep, I thought, if being at the top still frustrates me, perhaps the top was never meant to be comfortable. Mountains narrow as they rise. If I sought serenity, I could sell everything and retire. But that would only remove the noise, not the need for growth. The real work is to find peace inside motion, to build clarity within chaos.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

Chaos is not an intruder. It is a teacher.

Every leader, every parent, every creator will face days when life refuses to cooperate. Those days are intersections, where two truths collide, where transformation hides in disguise.

I learned that the opposite of chaos is not order.

It is presence.

Presence turns discipline into love, noise into music, and pressure into purpose.

When you stand fully at the intersection, between control and surrender, between noise and stillness, clarity stops being a place you reach and becomes the way you live.

That is the kind of leadership that endures: not the mastery of moments, but the maturity to embrace them.