There was once a farmer who owned a horse and had a son.
One day, his horse ran away. The neighbors came to express their concern: “Oh, that’s too bad. How are you going to work the fields now?” The farmer replied: “Good thing, Bad thing, Who knows?”
In a few days, his horse came back and brought another horse with her. Now, the neighbors were glad: “Oh, how lucky! Now you can do twice as much work as before!” The farmer replied: “Good thing, Bad thing, Who knows?”
The next day, the farmer’s son fell off the new horse and broke his leg. The neighbors were concerned again: “Now that he is incapacitated, he can’t help you around, that’s too bad.” The farmer replied: “Good thing, Bad thing, Who knows?”
Soon, the news came that a war broke out, and all the young men were required to join the army. The villagers were sad because they knew that many of the young men will not come back. The farmer’s son could not be drafted because of his broken leg. His neighbors were envious: “How lucky! You get to keep your only son.” The farmer replied: “Good thing, Bad thing, Who knows”.
The reason why I have shared this story today is for all of us to know that every bad experience that we have, or every disappointment that we have had, or every failure that we may have had in our lives, may not be a bad thing in reality. It sure may have caused unhappiness and heart break at the time of its happening. Some day in the future when you introspect, when you look back and try to connect the dots, you will realize that they somehow fall in place.
We can’t change the past, or may be can’t change what has already happened. The only thing that we can change about it, is the experience of it. Think about the learnings that you have had. When you think about the event, instead of the disappointment or the failure, think of the learning that you have had.
About Author
Sandhya Reddy is a PCC Accredited Executive Coach and Leadership coach based in Bangalore, India. She is the Founder and Principal Coach at Chapter Two Coaching, a coaching consultancy that specializes in leadership development. She has over 750+ hours of experience with coaching senior professionals. She has enabled personal transformation for over 1500+ individuals through coaching interventions, workshops, webinars and mentoring.
Chapter Two helps leaders in middle levels and senior levels engage better with their teams, peers and senior stakeholders. We help teams develop a growth and performance mindset, align better with the organizational culture and values and function more cohesively. We are also passionate about women’s leadership development and have developed a practice around it. We enable leadership development through 1:1 coaching interventions and through a set of curated leadership and personal transformational workshops.