Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse
ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They
said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most
unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back
bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and
said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight
horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the
horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors
then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.”
The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the
army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the
neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
The whole process of nature is an integrated process of
immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that
happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the
consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences
of good fortune.
— Alan Watts
I happened upon a parable this morning that I had never
heard before and I was quite intrigued by it and certainly by the point of the
story. One never knows if what happens
will be good fortune or not. I am sure
that everyone of us have had something take place in our lives that with the passage
of time we reflect upon it differently and how our lives would have been
changed or impacted had we experienced the opposite outcome. This parable was a timely reminder for me
today that with a little passage of time an experience, positive or negative,
can take a whole new perspective. And as
I try to revive my blog I hope this story brings you some comfort with a new
perspective as well.
