Butterfly wings and a tornado in Texas

The chaotic compounding of good and evil

“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” asked mathematician Edward Lorenz in 1972.

“It might,” said the scientific community for the next 50 years.

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Lorenz was the founder of chaos theory — one of those topics that sounds more fun to read about than it is.

But within chaos theory is a concept most of us are familiar with: The butterfly effect.

The butterfly effect first took flight when Lorenz made a tiny tweak to a computer model he was running for weather prediction.

The value he was supposed to enter into the model was 0.506127.

The value he entered was 0.506.

The result?

The program spit out a drastically different weather scenario.

And that’s the butterfly effect — the idea that microscopic changes can have massive consequences.

But this isn’t about butterflies or the weather or an MIT professor named Edward.

This is about you.

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Twenty years before Lorenz’s paper on the butterfly effect, British author C.S. Lewis published a book called “Mere Christianity”.

In Chapter 9, Lewis took the theory Lorenz had not yet created, made it more personal, and injected it directly into your soul.

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest,” Lewis wrote. “That is why the little decisions you and I make each day are of such infinite importance.

“The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.”

In short:

→ There is no such thing as an inconsequential action.

→ Meaningless thoughts don’t exist.

→ Everything has weight.

If you take Lewis at his word, even the smallest action or the most fleeting thought carries the weight of an anvil dropped from an Airbus.

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest.”

Much like chaos theory, compound interest breaks most people’s brains. 

Humans think in linear fashion.

Quick: What’s 45+55?

Now: What’s 45x55?

We can’t comprehend the power of compounding. Mostly, that affects how we save money, how we invest, and how we grow wealth.

But according to Lewis, our thoughts and actions also compound.

If you could process the strength of compounding, that idea would terrify you.

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The judgments, reactions, and internal monologues that take place in your life today have a bearing on the judgments, reactions, and internal monologues that will take place in your life tomorrow.

If your thoughts and actions are positive today, there’s a better chance they’ll be positive — on a larger scale — tomorrow.

If your thoughts and actions are negative today, there’s a better chance they’ll be negative — on a larger scale — tomorrow.

In your life, your butterfly flaps its wings tens of thousands of times a day.

Each flap has the potential to transform your life in a week, your life in a year, your life in a decade.

There is no such thing as an inconsequential action.

Meaningless thoughts don’t exist.

Everything has weight.