“What seems terrible at first may turn out to be a great thing. You can’t predict.”

A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible 

In our lives we tend to label events as “good” or “bad” or “before” and “after” the occurrence.  Before the divorce. After the divorce. Before the accident. After the accident. Before the addiction. After the addiction. But truth be told, good things can happen from bad events and bad things can happen from good events.

Take this story:

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.

***

One take on this story (see second link below in More Information) states that the farmer simply doesn’t care. But that is not the attitude I want to adopt. Often, we pretend we don’t care and end up repressing our feelings. There are times when it feels like life keeps punching us in the gut. We feel fear, disappointment, sorrow, regret, etc. We feel what we feel, and we need to acknowledge it for our own self-care.

We cannot deny the events which occur in our lives, but we can be careful how we label such events. The farmer disconnected himself from the events in themselves and allowed a larger picture of life to unfold. He didn’t label his life events as good or bad, he simply seemed to roll with the punches.

This is much harder than it seems. Humans have emotional attachments to events. We hold on to them.

In my Stephen’s Ministry training, they used the image of a deep mud pit to represent people going through a painful experience. That seems like an accurate image. Life gets messy and muddy. We get stuck sometimes, but this training told us to be careful of getting stuck in the pit with those we are ministering to. We were to lend a hand to help others out of the pit.

The danger comes when we remain stuck. We get used to the mud caked on our face. We get used to the muck. We don’t see how anything is going to change.

Yet we are wired to experience events and learn from them. I totaled a car when I was 16 as I was driving too fast and lost control of the car. Though I was terrified for months, I had more respect for safety, and it caused me to learn to be a more defensive driver and a much more careful one. A divorce, as I have experienced, can make you feel like a failure and cause anxiety for the future. But the divorce also allowed me to become a more confident and independent person. Opportunities arose which I would not have been able to pursue before. I learned to heal and love again.

A “bad” situation can be an opportunity. As much as we want to veer away from a negative experience, I certainly don’t want to have to survive cancer to appreciate life, etc.… we can choose to allow the situation to draw us closer to God or further from the Divine. We are gifted with the freedom to choose.

I have a friend who is going through a particularly rough time. Despite this, she has gratitude for each day she is gifted. I am amazed by her faith. We can take these “bad” experiences and share them with others in need of hope.  

Hope is often difficult to reach for in the bleakness of winter, sometimes like a flame it may shutter and even go out momentarily. All we can sometimes offer God is our honesty. But hope can be relit. We put our trust in God and keep rolling with the punches. Our lives go by page by page. And while we only know a piece of our own storybook, God knows all of it.

Is it good? Is it bad?

Or perhaps it is better off as a maybe.

”What seems good turns bad, what seems bad turns good. It is an endless cycle. “

Brenda Shoshanna

More Information:

Stories from Zen Buddhism – Buddha’s World (katinkahesselink.net)

The Real Lesson in the Taoist Farmer Story: Life is One Thing (newventureswest.com)

The Good from The Bad | Psychology Today

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