Good or Bad...or Maybe...

We humans certainly have a penchant for labeling and categorizing things and events.The news media always seems to rush to label events as either good or bad. In fact, they seem to be quite expert at it. But we all do it. I think that we must think that we need to put things in categories to make ourselves feel better or we think if we can categorize something it will help us function day to day better. Lately I found myself backsliding into this thinking in my own personal life. And really it's so easy to do.

So my recent backsliding made me think of one of my favorite Chinese parables about this subject.

There was a farmer whose horse ran away, so his neighbors immediately rushed over and said, "How awful that your horse ran away!", and the farmer replied, "Maybe". The next day the horse returned along with several wild horses too. The neighbors rushed over and told the farmer, "Oh what a wonderful turn of events. Now you have several horses!", and the farmer replied, "Maybe". The very next day the farmer's son tried riding one of the wild horses and fell and broke his leg. The neighbors rushed over once again and exclaimed, "Oh dear, that's too bad", and again the farmer replied, "Maybe". The following day the army conscriptionists were in the area looking to conscript men, but the farmer's son was rejected because of his broken leg. The neighbors came around again and exclaimed to the farmer, "Isn't that great?!", and the farmer once again replied, "Maybe".

It isn't that the farmer didn't care or have an opinion, he just refused to think of things in terms of gain or loss, good or bad, or advantage or disadvantage because one never knows. And quite often we really don't know how an event will eventually play out. For example, who wouldn't want to win the lottery? Winning the lottery is surely only good fortune, right? But I bet we've all heard of a lottery winner or two who later said that winning the lottery turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

I think that it's important to remember that things aren't always so clear cut. In fact in my own life I think back to when I was fired from my job, and my friends and family felt just terrible for me. But at the time I was relieved. And now years later I see losing my job as a blessing in disguise. I probably would never have gone into business for myself if my safety net hadn't been removed. So for me something that seemed terrible at the time actually turned out to be something good. So it's true that quite often one never knows.

So I try to not to fall into this pattern of thinking, but I admit it can be difficult. The emphasis is on try, and that's really all any of us can do. I still get excited about seemingly good things. How can I not? And I still get disappointed too. Once again, how can I not? But when I feel myself getting caught up in reacting from one event to the next, I try to remind myself to take a step back. This may not turn out how I expect because sometimes one never really knows. Today's tragedy may turn into tomorrow's blessing.