Oscillations are a normal part of life.
Oscillations – the act or state of oscillating
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Oscillating – to vary above and below a mean value (Merriam-Webster dictionary)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
In fact, oscillatory behavior is everywhere. I challenge you to find anything at all that isn’t varying above and below a mean value.
We see oscillations in air temperatures, soil temperatures and body temperatures seasons. All of these can vary over an hour, a day, a month, a year and over decades.
Generational beliefs also oscillate. For example, feeling like you were ignored as a child might lead you to shower (too much) attention on your own children, who will in turn possibly turn toward a bit more distance with their own children, and so on.
Even fashion trends tend to oscillate – one day it is grossly out of fashion and then it eventually cycles back around to being the thing to wear. Your life (or your business) is no different. Picture your life as a non-uniform curve that keeps going above and below the average line. When it’s above this line you feel like life is great! And when it falls below the line, you might think nothing is going right.
When I was studying meteorology at Penn State, I learned this in a really powerful way. As part of my research, I was modeling a thermal system that was supposed to be going to equilibrium (the temperature was supposed to go to steady state). Instead, it was just falling and falling and falling – a seemingly endless decline.
This was catastrophic for my research. I was panicked. Something was wrong and I didn’t know how to fix it.
In despair, I went to talk to a friendly, young professor in the department. He listened to my problem (my temperature was plummeting) and his suggestion was simply that I read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. (Notably this was in 1993, before the movie was made. I hadn’t even heard of the book at that point.)
Upset and annoyed at the apparent change of subject, I headed home, dutifully stopping at the bookstore on my way. That night I began to read. I read and read (it was a pretty good book!) without understanding why I was doing so, expecting nothing more than some entertainment.
I assumed I was wasting my time and was completely prepared to go back the next day to report that I had read the book. When suddenly, a bit of text caught my eye.
The book began to talk about how nature has a way of evening things out. Nature isn’t a runaway system – there is always an opposing force that will cause the system to shift and go in the other direction. Nothing runs away in a single direction, if you give it enough time.
Give it enough time. That is what caught my eye.
Had I given up too early? Did I just need to wait and see what might happen? What if I increase the model run time and then wait and watch?
I was back in that office in a heartbeat and increasing my time interval by orders of magnitude. I ran the model, I waited and I watched. Just like always, the temperature decreased and decreased, but as the time went past the previous endpoint it started to level out and rise again. After rising for a bit, it again leveled out and then decreased and so on and so on.
It wasn’t falling precipitously toward failure after all. It was, in fact, oscillating. I had just been too focused on a very small part of the graph. I hadn’t thought to give it more time so that it could naturally recover.
After this, I did complete that thesis in pretty short order and earn the degree, but what I took away from that research went far beyond the physical sciences.
I learned to wait and see – I learned that when things seem bad, they will always get better.
Moods go up and moods go down. Life gets hard and then it gets easier. Sadness comes and goes in waves. Joy increases and then decreases.
Sometimes you feel like your life is in freefall. You just can’t seem to get your bearings and everything is falling apart.
When you are on those downhill sections of the curve, you will be sad, angry, hopeless. These times can feel endless and can throw you into despair or threaten to overwhelm you with grief.
If you focus in on these hard times, all you will see is the falling curve.
Don’t give up too early.
Give it time. Wait and watch.
Eventually, you’ll find your life starting to even out, and then you’ll see it start to climb back up.
Increase the time and trust. Let the waves pass.
