Looks like I’m going to tell you a story I heard about at school when I was ten. Geez, is this meant to be some children’s bed time story? Ummm…why not you tell me after reading this entry? Right, the story I’m telling was originated from a Chinese proverb (赛翁失马，焉知非福) [sai weng shi ma, yan zhi fei fu].
Mr. Sai owned an expensive horse. It had excellent ground manners in terms of its performance, speed, versatility, athletic, plus it was very friendly and sociable. Mr. Sai was very proud of his horse and had been bringing it around showing off. One day, the horse left his owner. Unfortunately the horse was no where to be found and thus left Mr. Sai living lugubriously since. Just when Mr. Sai was still mourning about his loss; his horse appeared in front of his house and this time he brought with him another horse.
I guess the meaning of this story is pretty self-explanatory. In case I didn’t make it conspicuous enough, the moral of this story was what it appeared to be unfortunate might actually bringing us good fortune and luck later.
I’m very sure many of us have had such experience before. There are incidents when we are working towards a goal, despite after putting all the effort and have tried our best; in the end we just do not get what we aimed. Sure, we would feel upset and disappointed. But actually once we’ve recovered from this somber mood; the earth still continues to rotate and life still goes on. Believe it or not, maybe that initial loss and disappointment will bring us something better many-folds later.
I have a college friend. She didn’t do well for her GPA and thus she couldn’t continue an additional year (which we were required to perform a year of individual research project and write up a thesis later) for her degree at a department she really wanted. She was low-spirited and felt lost for a while. But her optimisms made her to find an alternative way to continue to her studies. In the end, she managed to get an offer of a different degree at another college. She worked hard (as before) and quickly she adapted to the new environment. 2 years later, she actually managed to get half a scholarship in pursuing her doctorate degree and she wasn’t much behind than my other college mates who took the “normal” option with high GPA score and ended up gaining doctorate studentship.
I know a friend who felt so heartsick from all her past bitter relationship. It took her almost a year to go through a lot of soul searching after her last breakup. Just when she thought she would never find love again; she met someone who really appreciates and cares for her.
These are just some stories happening around us or they actually happened to us. I’m sure there are a lot more we can talk about. What all these real life examples do tell us one thing; things happen for a reason and no matter how negative it looks like in the beginning, it may not be ugly in actuality. For instance, if my college mate scored higher GPA and managed to continue her additional year in the degree. She’s likely not able to get a position for her doctoral scholarship seeing the fact that there was limited studentship offer for our batch of student. Whereas though it might appeared that she was taking a different route for continuing her degree; the change of environment and other things induced a feasible learning atmosphere to her and eventually she did better than a lot of us.
What about my other friend who was hurt and lost her faith in love? Sure it was really disheartening that she couldn’t be with her recent ex, who seemed to be a nice chap. But the failure of that relationship prompted her to actually have a lot of personal development and started to perceive things differently. And when her right one appeared, she was truly ready.
Mr. Sai lost his horse, was that a sign of bad luck? We didn’t get something we want, was that unfortunate? Well, it’s still too early to say…
I hope you like this children's story. Perhaps you can tell this “Mr. Sai and his lost horse” story to your kids (in future). :P
♥ every page of my imagination
