Once, when I was telling a friend this story (I talk about it a lot, I’m afraid, as some of you know), he said, “You mean like that Chinese proverb about the boy and the horse?”
Seeing me stare at him blankly, he told me the story, which goes a little something like this…
A long time ago, a young boy in China had a horse that he adored. One day, the horse ran away, and the boy’s neighbor said to him “What terrible news, that’s such bad luck!”
The boy replied, “I’m not sure. Who can really tell what’s good and what’s bad?”
A few days later the horse returned to the boy, and brought back with it several new, wild horses. “What amazing good luck!” the boy’s neighbor said.
The boy replied, “Who can really tell what’s good and what’s bad?”
Several weeks later and the boy is breaking in one of the wild horses and he’s thrown to the ground, breaking his leg. “What terribly bad news!” the boy’s neighbor says.
“Who can really tell what’s good and what’s bad?” the boy replied.
Not long after that the Emperor’s army came to town, conscripting all the young men to fight in a war. The boy, with his broken leg, was spared conscription and didn’t go to war. “What good luck!” said the neighbor.
The boy replied, “Who can really tell what’s good and what’s bad?”
And so it goes on…
I’ve since learned that the original Chinese version of this is slightly different, but the moral is the same. The message is simple and, for me, very relevant to where we are now: Good things can come from bad things, and in fact they very often do.
The situation we’re in now is certainly difficult and parts of it are heartbreakingly bad, but from this, in the end, will come new experiences, relationships and inspirations for all of us that we wouldn’t have had otherwise, and that’s going to be something we value in years to come.
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Austin Rathe is a Partner in Brunswick’s Digital practice, advising clients across a range of sectors to develop effective social and digital communications strategies. He is based in New York.
