Albert Einstein once said - “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.”

How you view your world - as good or as bad, impacts your attitude towards situations.

A good parable that explains this, is that of a Chinese farmer. I heard of this story many years ago and I keep coming back to it again and again.

Good News, Bad News, Who Knows?

Once lived an old Chinese farmer who was tired of being poor and wanted to be rich. To this end, he bought a stallion with the intention to breed horses. He paid for it using all his money and possessions. He even borrowed money from his neighbours.

One morning he woke up to discover the stallion had run away during the night. Witnessing this, his neighbours said, “That’s terrible news. You’ve lost all your money. What are you going to do now?” The farmer, shrugged his shoulder and replied, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

The stallion fell in with a group of wild horses and returned a couple of days later, accompanied by the other horses. This time, the neighbours said, “This is good fortune! Now you are really rich” The farmer responded with the same words, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

The farmer asked his son to train the new horses, but one of the horses threw off the son and stomped on his leg, breaking it. The neighbours came around and said to the farmer: “So sorry for the bad news about your son. Who’s going to marry him now?”. The farmer again simply answered, “Good news, bad news, who knows?"

A week later, The king declared war against the neighbouring province. King’s gangs moved around town and rounded up all the able-bodied young men to be drafted to fight. The farmer’s son was spared because he had a crooked leg. All the neighbours said, “Good fortune to you that your son doesn’t have to go to war”. “Good news, bad news, who knows?" replied the farmer.

And the story goes on and on like this forever…

Don’t label things

Even something that seems terrible now, can be an opportunity when viewed back in hindsight. I am sure all of us can think of something that happened in our lives that, at the time it happened, we were devastated, but we can look back upon it now and say, “that was actually pretty good”. The dots connect retrospectively, only when we are looking back. We need to trust the universe that it will all make sense in the future.

People are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.

－ Epictetus

We should not label things as good or bad. A thing isn’t generally good or bad. It just is.

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