Our everyday life is a series of unexpected events, nothing ever happens the way we want to or the way we planned. And we complain about it. But each one of these events changes our life even in the smaller ways, so who can tell whether what happens to us is a blessing or misfortune? Appearances deceive…

Each event of our life is labelled according its core nature, a label affixed according to common sense : someone won the lottery that’s beautiful, another one got promoted what a success, she just had a child what a blessing, he just had an accident, that's tragic, his wife left him that's so unfair, she lost her job that's terrible...

I am not denying the pleasure there is in winning a big amount in the lottery or the pain linked to losing one’s job. But pleasure is not happiness and pain is not misfortune. I tend to think there is some kind of inversion and that misfortune takes root in pleasure and happiness in pain.

Life is not as simple as the dichotomy between good and bad, luck or misfortune. On the short term, that is entrely true, but on the long term, nothing is completely black or white.

When I lost my job in 2007 just one month after I took my own flat, I shortly felt scared and anxious (and relieved as the translation agency I work in was an absolute nightmare), but it gave me the chance to start working freelance. The loss of my job, painful as it was at first, was actually a blessing.

You can also hear quite often that lottery winners complain about losing some of there friends, having people coming into there life as "friends" just to take advantage of their generosity, or completely losing it, burdened by the weight of their new sudden and unexpected fortune.

The Eastern wisdom is summed up in the yin and yang symbol, the white part being the forces of good and the black part the forces of evil, but in each part there’s a dot of the opposite colour.

The black dot in the white area says REMAIN HUMBLE, the white dot in the black area says DON’T LOSE HOPE.

LUCK or MISFORTUNE?

One day, an inhabitant of Northern China saw his horse fleeing and crossing the border. The horse was considered lost for ever.

To the neighbours who came to express their sympathy for the lost horse, the old man answered:

- The loss of my horse is indeed a great tragedy. But who knows if some luck doesn’t lie in this ill fortune?

A few months later, the horse came back accompanied by a beautyful mare. His neighbours came to congratulate him, but he impassively said:

- Is it luck or is it misfortune?

The only son of the old man grew amazingly fond of the mare. He rode her as often as he could, and eventually broke his leg.

To the sympathy expressed by the neighbours, the old man answered, unperturbed:

- What if this accident was a blessing for my son?

The following year, the Huns invaded the North of the country. Every young man of the village was mobilised and sent to the front. None of them came back. The son of the old man, who couldn’t be mobilised because of his injury, was the only one to survive the carnage.

(from Hoài-Nam-Tu)

Fushichô

May 18, 2008