Who is Le Châtelier, you ask? Well, if you're well-learned in Chemistry, or have taken it in school, you might know that he created/discovered/found out a principle about systems, conveniently named Le Châtelier's Principle. The principle, directly from my Chemistry textbook, states that when any system at equilibrium is disturbed by an application of stress, it attains a new equilibrium that minimizes the stress. In other words, when something happens to stress a system, it does something to alleviate that stress. Now, this was only meant to be used in chemical systems (to the best of my knowledge, which is admittedly slim on Mr. Châtelier here), but when you think about it, it could be used in just about any part of life.
What? You don't think about stuff like this on your own time? What's wrong with you? :) OK, OK, I get the point... it's a little weird, but when you've got a brain the size of a planet you need to do something to pass the time. *puts on Marvin the Paranoid Android T-shirt*
First, before moving on to some of the deep stuff, I'll start my analysis with a jar of peanut butter. Imagine, if you will, a glass jar of peanut butter. And now, imagine dropping it onto a hard floor of some type. For the clumsier people among us (including me!), this should not be that hard. When the jar hits the floor, an immense amount of stress is being placed on it. To relieve the stress, the jar breaks into pieces. Now, the peanut butter is under stress. The jar holding it in is now gone, and now outside forces are able to act on it. Such as gravity, for instance. To relieve the stress, the peanut butter 'goes with the flow' and gravitates onto the floor and makes a sticky mess.
If you want to take this slightly further, you are now under stress for breaking the jar. There are tons of pieces of glass, and a big mess of peanut butter all over the floor. At some point, someone is going to be angry with you for this mess, even if you live alone. To relieve this stress on yourself, you can do a few things. The easiest thing would be to deny any knowledge of the event, and run away quickly before anyone catches you near it. But, that isn't very nice, and could get you into even more trouble. The better thing to do to alleviate your stress would be to find some way to clean the mess up.
...wow, that analogy worked better than I had hoped... All righty then, on to the deeper stuff.
There are many stressing elements in the average person's life. Some are small, like getting chewed out by the boss for something stupid that they've done. Some are large, like the death of a family member, or getting sentenced to life in prison. Or possibly dying, that's a pretty big stress. But when the stress of being dead appears, you're already dead so you don't really care about it. Moving on... Let's take the first stress of getting yelled at by your boss for doing something stupid, like putting decaf coffee in his coffee maker. That's fairly stressing. And because you are stressed, you will find some way to relieve it, and attain your equilibrium. In this case, it would probably be something you do internally, like imagining your boss getting hit by a small nuclear bomb while spontaneously combusting and getting whacked in the kneecaps by small Keebler elves. In his underpants.
Now, let's move on to a larger stress, such as the death of a close friend or family member. Obviously, this is a large stressor. Some may say in this case that there is no equilibrium, that life is completely and utterly thrown out of balance forever after this. This is not true. It may feel like it, but it is not true. And if it is true, it shouldn't be. If life was forever thrown out of equilibrium, we would not be able to live. For a while, life is completely out of equilibrium, as you begin to death with the death and the absence of the person. But, eventually, your life continues on. Your equilibrium may be wildly different than it was before, but it is still at an equilibrium. I may not be an expert on this part, as I have not yet had to deal with the death of a close family member, but I know the time may be coming soon. In fact, I have been thinking about something like this for many years. I may not have had an actual death, but my mind has been preparing me for it for years...
I think that's the general idea... of course, this could be used in almost any situation, but I have neither the time nor the will to type out any more examples. So, comment if you will, don't if you won't, and keep your mind as sharp as your wit. Until next time!
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