The Chaos That Pushed Me to Ancient Scripts
You know how it is. You spend forty years building a career, chasing deadlines, thinking the office stress is the worst thing you have to handle. Then you pull back, you semi-retire, and suddenly you’re home all the time. That’s when the real stress hits. Not the work stuff, but the family stuff. Everything I thought I knew about home life structure just crumbled when I was physically there twenty-four/seven.
I was driving everyone nuts. My wife, bless her heart, had her routine nailed down while I was away, and I completely barge-ran right through it. I started trying to ‘help’—which really meant I was messing up her system. We’d be arguing over the dumbest stuff: why my tools were still on the kitchen counter, why I bought the wrong brand of coffee, why I left the TV remote where she couldn’t find it. It wasn’t drama, but it was constant, low-level friction. The house felt less like a haven and more like a really cramped, polite battlefield.
I tried all the normal modern fixes. We sat down and ‘communicated’—that just led to one of us feeling defensive. I read those irritating self-help books about ‘active listening’—my eyes glazed over. I needed something structural, something that gave us clear roles and expectations, not just fluffy feelings talk. I was so desperate for an answer that wasn’t another couples counseling session, I remembered this old, dusty copy of the I Ching I’d inherited years ago. It was sitting on a shelf, untouched, mocking me. I figured, what the heck, maybe some two-thousand-year-old wisdom could fix my domestic mess.
Digging Into Hexagram 37: Jia Ren
I grabbed that heavy book and started flipping. I wasn’t looking for predictions; I was looking for patterns. I landed on Hexagram 37, which they call ‘Jia Ren’—The Family or The Clan. Immediately, I saw why it felt right. This hexagram isn’t about passion or romance; it’s entirely about structure, roles, and harmony maintained through clear boundaries. It’s essentially the ancient Chinese organizational chart for home life.
The core concept is that a successful family needs order that moves from the inside out, starting with the inner roles and spreading to the community. I pored over the lines, reading how each position—father, mother, children, the housekeeper—had specific duties that, when followed, kept the whole engine running smoothly.
What really got me was how it emphasized the importance of the woman’s role (the inner power) in maintaining the stability of the home, but also the father’s role in providing clear direction and stability (the outer structure). This wasn’t about who was ‘in charge,’ but who was responsible for which piece of the puzzle. It felt very practical, almost like a project management plan for your marriage. I copied down the six lines and their interpretations, knowing I wasn’t going to follow them literally, but use them as a framework to audit our own setup.
How I Ran the Experiment (The Family Audit)
This wasn’t some huge, spiritual quest; this was a week-long trial to see if clarity beat chaos. I pulled my wife aside—not for a fight, but for a ‘meeting’—and I showed her my notes. I explained I was trying to map out who actually owns which domain in the house, using the ancient roles as inspiration, not law.
We started by defining domains based on the hexagram’s structure:
- The Inner Stability (The Mother/Wife Role): She already handled finances and meal planning. We formalized that. This became her jurisdiction, and I committed to zero interference unless asked.
- The Outer Direction (The Father/Husband Role): I took over all external maintenance (cars, yard, bills that needed physical trips), and became the primary conflict resolver when the kids had issues (the ‘face’ of authority).
- The Daily Execution (The Servant/Helper Role): This was where we had the most friction. We wrote down every single recurring chore and assigned them ruthlessly. No more “I thought you were doing that.”
The weird thing was, just writing it down and agreeing to it reduced the arguments almost instantly. For example, the hexagram talks about clear communication. So, if I needed to know about the grocery list, I had to formally ask, not just criticize what she bought. If she needed the yard mowed, she put it on the external list, and I handled it without procrastination or argument.
What I Pulled Out of the Mess
So, does the 37th hexagram predict success? Nah, it doesn’t predict anything. But it absolutely provides the structure that enables success.
I learned that our relationship wasn’t failing because we stopped loving each other; it was failing because we had overlapping, undefined roles. When I was busy working, the structure was clear: I brought in the income, she ran the house. When I retired, I just became a secondary, disorganized manager in her domain, and she became frustrated.
The moment we adopted the clarity suggested by that old script—assigning undisputed sovereignty over specific tasks—the atmosphere lifted. The ancient text wasn’t telling us how to feel, but how to act, and action brought the peace we needed. We still bicker, sure, we’re human. But now, when an issue pops up, we don’t argue about who should fix it; we just check the list and the defined role takes over. My family life didn’t thrive because of magic or fate; it thrived because I finally stopped trying to manage everything badly and started implementing a simple, old-school organizational plan. Sometimes, the oldest solutions are the ones you need to grab.
