A farmer’s horse runs away. His neighbors console him: “What terrible luck!” The farmer shrugs, “Maybe.” The next day the horse returns, leading a herd of wild horses behind it — “What wonderful luck!” “Maybe.” His son tries to tame one, is thrown, and breaks his leg — “How awful!” “Maybe.” A week later the army marches through, conscripting every able-bodied young man for a war most won’t return from, and the son, with his broken leg, is passed over — “How wonderful!” “Maybe.” Good luck, bad luck — who knows? The story is never finished, so the farmer never renders the verdict. He just keeps living.
There are a lot of these in my life — where I thought something was bad, but it turned out good.
The latex allergy
I developed a latex allergy — a real problem when balloon twisting is your thing. But it forced me to learn to twist wearing leather gloves, and leather gloves turn out to be wonderful: they don’t squeak against the balloons the way bare hands do, so I can make balloons anywhere without that rubbery screech announcing me first. Bad luck? Maybe.
The shoulder
I tweaked my shoulder doing Turkish get-ups — and discovered I’d been grinding the same sloppy form for years without realizing it. The injury forced me to rebuild my kettlebell technique from the ground up: now every rep is crisp, aligned, and dialed in. Bad luck? Maybe.
The second phone
Work was starting to monitor my devices, and Facebook was getting aggressive about hunting for leaks — firing people even when it was likely a false positive or an accidental leak. I figured I’m sloppy enough that sooner or later I’d be one of those accidental leaks, so I air-gapped my work onto a separate laptop and phone. The laptop I didn’t mind. But a second phone? I was sure that would be absolutely miserable — I hate carrying two phones, I figured I’d lose one, I figured I’d regret it. Then, on vacation, the second phone turned out to be a gift: when Amelia forgets her phone or lets the battery die, I just hand her my spare — now she’s reachable, trackable, and covered. Bad luck? Maybe.
Amazon
After three great years at Amazon, I ended up on a team that was just a really bad fit for me. That mismatch resulted in a very not-great review, which was genuinely stressful at the time. But it lit a fire under me: I studied hard and ended up with offers from Facebook, Google, Zillow, Indeed, and a couple of smaller companies. I picked Facebook — and have had an amazing six-year-and-counting career there. Bad luck? Maybe.
Mental breakdown in my thirties
I went through a really rough stretch in my thirties — mental-breakdown territory, honestly, the worst I’ve ever felt. But it’s what pushed me to treat sleep as sacred, build my emotional-health habits (gratitude, meditation, the daily practices), discover the 7 Habits, and write my eulogy — the whole operating system I run my life on now. I wouldn’t have built any of it if I hadn’t needed to. Bad luck? Maybe.
I still panic first, but I’ve been wrong so many times about which turns were good and which were bad that I wish I could remember you never can tell.
ps. I know every one of these ran bad-news-to-good-news. The reverse is just as true — the good news passes too. One of my affirmations is “this too shall pass,” and it applies just as much in the good times as the bad.