Huainanzi - Entry 82

Trey Smith

Something desired for its advantages may turn out to be harmful, while something intended to hurt others may on the contrary help them. It is imperative to examine the reversal of benefit and injury, the door of calamity and fortune.
~ a passage from The Book of Leadership and Strategy by Thomas Cleary ~

There have been many occasions in my life when I have made an absolutely dumbass decision and yet everything has worked out a-okay. On the flip side, I have also made some very well thought out and well reasoned decisions that have blown up in my face.

I know that a lot of people say that we each control our own destiny, but it's not really true. There are too many variables to account for and some of those variables are beyond our comprehension.

For example, an individual could make all the right moves in their life and still die in a horrific commercial plane crash. There is no way in the world they could have known that this particular plane would crash on this particular flight. The person may have been on that flight for honorable reasons, but none of that matters when the plane crashes to earth.

Life is a crap shoot. We don't ask to be born and few of us know when, where and how we will die. Between these two monumental events, all we can do is to try to put our best foot forward. Yet, in our attempts to lead a smart and compassionate life, we should understand that life will take us where it may.

For me, while how one chooses to live in the world is important, what is more critical is how we deal with what life throws at us. It is how we deal with bad situations turned good and good situations gone bad.

To read the introduction to this ongoing series, go here.