As a former engineer, I want things to be orderly and logical. In keeping with this mindset, I took a Taoist view of luck as told in their famous farmer story.
“Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors visited him to commiserate, saying, “We’re so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” To which the farmer simply replied, “Maybe.”
The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening, everybody came back and said, “Oh, what luck! What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again simply said, “Maybe.”
The following day the man’s son tried to break one of the wild horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors came again and said, “Oh dear, we’re so sorry to hear about your son’s leg. That’s truly unfortunate.” The farmer simply responded, “Maybe.”
The next day an enlistment officer came to the farm looking to draft young men into the army, and upon seeing the boy’s broken leg, he left the farm allowing the boy to stay with his father. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “How lucky you are that you can keep your son! Isn’t that great!” Again, the farmer simply said, “Maybe.””
So to me, a situation itself wasn’t either good or bad, it was what you made of it. I carried this thought through to extremes. Hit the numbers? A lot of bad things happened to people who suddenly came into money, it was a wait and see.
Come upon a marvelous job or business – well, it was just a matter of putting yourself out there, recognizing and following through on one of the many opportunities life presents us all.
I was proud to be a cynic and bragged about being able to rationalize any random event UNTIL
I was a student at Penn State, a party school and my sister was a nursing student in a sleepy town about 2 hours away. She would frequently save her money and take the bus down for a weekend. She’d arrive Friday evening, we’d party hearty Saturday evening and she’d return to school Sunday, tired but happy. Well, one Sunday she slept through her bus stop and ended up a few hours away without money for a return ticket or anyone she could call to pick her up. She was starting to panic fearing she would have to call our parents and get in major trouble when the woman sitting next to her started talking. Turns out this stranger was waiting for a bus to return to Penn State. My sister shared her tale of woe. While the woman seemed unmoved, she casually asked who my sister had been visiting. Turns out the woman was my next-door neighbor, believed she would get her money back and gladly bought my sister a bus ticket back to school. At that tim , Penn State’s main campus had a student body of over 10,000. The only way I can explain their meeting is serendipity. Maybe all things in life really are random.
I like how your Chinese farmer accepted things that came along. And your sister's good fortune. In the last 40 years in Houston's metropolitan area of over 2 million inhabitants, several times I've encountered close friends and colleagues. Like my former graduate assistant twice while going home and needing gasoline on a Friday afternoon. Usually relying on a good Samaritan to pump my gasoline, finding Cynthia was at the station at the same time and pumped my gasoline for me.
I have experienced serendipity many times in my life, both good and bad. Why I don't worry about what's going to happen, especially when I die. I've already put my affairs in order and definitely have a few things left to do to keep my brother from having to waste a lot of time.
I just got a call and email from Counterpoint, our grid power provider. Both announced that within the next few days they would be upgrading our electrical service to avoid future outages and to expect the power to be out from 4 to 8 hours while they make the upgrade. Am I worried about when it will happen, no. "Que sera sera, whatever will be will be."
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