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Entropy of Life
Whats the "trick" for dealing with life's difficulties and the effort that goes along with it?

Richard Erickson, MS, DDS Subscriptions:

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Entropy:
Rich Erickson, MS, DDS Do the following phrases seem in any way related: I want to be rich and successful; I want to be thin and fit; I desire great personal relationships, I want to build the practice and staff of my dreams? Oddly enough, all of these things we strive for have a common thread running through them. It is a universal law of nature you may remember from chemistry class years ago. ENTROPY is a thermodynamic term well known to physical chemists. Before I lose you to the next section, allow me to explain how this elegant mathematical concept, the second law of thermodynamics, has such a profound universal application and meaning to our lives, our relationships, our practices, virtually everything we are conscious of. The concept of entropy even explains why life sometimes takes so much effort just to keep from going backwards. It reveals why constant effort is needed to maintain our personal and professional lives at the level we strive for. The concept of entropy even provides the answer for why it is difficult for some to CHANGE old habits, CHANGE their physical condition, or CHANGE their practices in order to take them to the next level. As someone said recently, "Why is it that life seems to get more complicated the older we get?" Bear with me as we explore these problems and I will reward you with some answers. At the conclusion of this section there is a "trick" for dealing with life's difficulties and the effort that goes along with it -- no cheating now and skipping to the end! So what is ENTROPY exactly, for those of us who have forgotten our science from long ago? One of the ways this principle can be mathematically represented is with the formula: S = Q/T where equals the change in entropy of a "system", T is the absolute temperature of that system and Q equals the energy (heat) absorbed or given off by the system. Hold onto your slide-rule Einstein, how about giving a more down to earth definition. With all due apologies to mathematics, a more understandable version of entropy can be thought of as: "All things in the universe will naturally proceed from a more ordered state to a less ordered state unless an outside force or energy acts upon them." Some everyday examples will illustrate this more clearly. A balloon exerts a force on the air within it, keeping it from escaping. Once the balloon is "popped", the force is gone and the gas disperses to a MORE RANDOM state. Ice will melt from a more ordered crystal to a liquid and finally to a gas unless the force of a container or the energy of refrigeration prevents it. The complex human body is maintained as long as energy in the form of food and air are consumed to maintain it. Once this stops, we die and turn to dust. Fossil fuels are consumed for energy to keep other "systems" on earth from becoming more disordered however they themselves are transformed into a less ordered carbon dioxide and water. The universe itself is EXPANDING to a more random state. But what about examples of entropy in our practice and personal lives?

I once heard Dr. Jim Pride, founder of the Pride Institute, state on a dinner dais, "I run five separate businesses and if I fail to keep constant tabs on any one of them, they begin to decline." I was surprised yet comforted by the fact that "The Great Organizer", Jim Pride, would admit to having the same problems as most of us. Do you see entropy at work here? Without constant attention and tweaking, our practice efficiency, production and even the physical facility itself begins to decline. It is nature's law to degenerate towards a more disordered state. Let's look at the difficulty of changing old habits, whether it is within the practice or on a more personal level. Obviously, in order to take a practice to the next level, change must be implemented. These changes can be in the form of training new staff, terminating the ones holding the practice back, learning new technology and techniques, redecorating or rebuilding the physical facility, implementing new "systems" or improving the old ones, just to name a few. Change IS difficult and for some, it is just too stressful to even consider changing old habits at all. As dentists, we are so conditioned to look for the easiest way to affect change that the crutch word COOKBOOK is almost a clich in our profession and is used to a fault among seminar speakers. And yet, MAJOR CHANGE is the required ENERGY part of the entropy equation to take our practice from a LESS ORDERED state to a MORE ORDERED state, i.e., to the next level! So what's the trick to make this happen? New ideas are learned at seminars and dental meetings. The problem of course is, how many good ideas learned at meetings are not implemented in the practice? The efficiency, profitability, organizational level, and happiness of any practice is EQUAL to the amount of effort (ENERGY) that is put into it. There is NO shortcut, no easy "fix". For example, it may be easier in the short term to live with a poorly designed office than to change it. However, the long term consequences for doing so will be dramatically negative not only on your practice, but your attitude as well. Change is no easier commodity in our personal lives. Self-help books, diet books, diet pills, etc., are being sold by the truckload because all of us are seeking the easy solution. We are all looking for the cookbook, the pill, the magic bullet, the TRICK to re-ordering our life without supplying the energy and effort which the Law of Entropy demands. Giving into temptations, lack of exercise, sitting on the couch, refusing to change old habits or lifestyles requires NO EFFORT and the law of entropy dictates what the end result will be: a more disordered state. It is a simple fundamental law! So again, what's the trick? For some of us, the day to day attention (ENERGY) needed to keep personal relationships from heading to disorder and failure can become too difficult at times. And so the easier choice is to discard a failing relationship and select a new one, letting the chemistry of the brain's endorphins supply the energy for this new relationship rather than work at the old one. More and more "toys" and "things" are often purchased in the quest for happiness simply because it is easier than building personal relationships. However, I have yet to see this be successful in the quest for personal happiness. Perhaps some of you may remember the old "Honeymooners" TV show with Jackie Gleason. Ralph and Alice had nothing in material goods, lived in a dump of an apartment in Brooklyn and yet, in terms of a personal relationship, they had everything , didn't they?

Is building the "dream practice" difficult, sometimes frustrating, confrontational, time consuming, and demanding? Of course it is! But the effort to overcome these obstacles is once again the ENERGY required to keep your "system" in a highly ordered state. Does nurturing and maintaining your personal and professional relationships take effort? Of course it does, but the rewards for doing so need no re-conformation here. So what's the TRICK alluded to earlier? What's the gimmick, the trick when the fad diet still leaves you hungry at night or when working out to get in shape leaves you sore all over? What's the trick when extra effort and "sweat" are needed to change your practice? What's the trick when changing bad habits leads to many setbacks and restarts? What's the cookbook, the magic pill to make it easier to keep all of life's "systems" in a highly ordered state? The trick is this: There's an old, classic movie, "Lawrence of Arabia" which has always been one of my favorites. In an early scene, T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) is showing his lieutenant friend a "trick" with a lit match in which he quietly holds the burning match between his fingers until it burns down to his skin and goes out. When the lieutenant tries it, the match burns down to his fingers whereupon he screams out in pain, saying, "It hurts, it HURTS! What's the trick?!" Lawrence smiles and says, "Of course it hurts! The TRICK is not minding that it hurts." Many things we do in our lives "hurt" while making the effort to achieve our goals. It sometimes "hurts" to get in shape, to change our lives or the lives of others, to bring our practice to the next level, to nurture our personal relationships. The trick my friends, is not minding that it hurts. One of my favorite seminar speakers, Harald Heymann, in a recent Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry editorial reprinted a familiar bit of prose called The Station. I had read it years ago but it was a timely moment that I was re-reading it again. It relates to how we sometimes get too caught up in the "goals" of life and miss out on something more important:

The Station

by Robert J. Hastings

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We're traveling by passenger train, and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.

But uppermost, in our minds, is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There will be bands playing, and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will all fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering...waiting, waiting, waiting for the station. However, sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly out distances us. "When we reach the station that will be it!" we cry. Translated, it means, "When I'm eighteen, that will be it! When I buy a new Mercedes Benz, that will be it! When I put the last kid through college, that will be it! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it! When I win a promotion, that will be it! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it! I shall live happily ever after!" Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track. "Relish the moment" is a good motto especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather it is regret over yesterday of fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today. So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.