A Life Lesson Remembered after a Failed Dinner Party

A Life Lesson Remembered after a Failed Dinner Party

Sometimes, we try so hard to fit in, please other people or have things go a particular way that we cause the very outcomes we are trying to avoid and we then let ourselves get into a rut over it.  We take ourselves so seriously that we forget that there is an immense and complicated nature behind all that we are and all that we do and by trying to control or over interpret events, we are just setting ourselves up for failure- both real and wrongfully perceived. 

I had a small dinner party last weekend and by trying my best to have it go a certain way, I went against my instincts on certain aspects of it and by doing that, it went exactly the way I didn’t want it to go in the first place.  After ruminating on how the evening turned out for a couple days, I remembered the old Taoist parable about the Chinese farmer and finally let it go and moved on.  The parable goes something like this:

There once was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away one day.  That night, his neighbor came over and told him how unfortunate it was that the horse ran away, to which the farmer replied, “maybe”.   

The next day, the horse returned to the farm and brought four wild horses along with him.  That night, his neighbor came over and said how wonderful and great it was for him to have his horse back and to have four new horses, to which the farmer replied, “maybe”.

The day after that his son, who was trying to tame one of the new horses, was thrown and badly broke his leg.  That night, his neighbor came over and told the farmer how terrible it was that his son broke his leg, to which the farmer replied, “maybe”.

The next day, the Emperor’s conscription officers came by looking to draft new recruits for the war, but they rejected the son because of his broken leg and left.  That night, his neighbor came over and said how wonderful and fortunate it was that his son had avoided being sent to the war, to which the farmer replied, “maybe.”

There is an arrogance that quietly creeps into us, especially as we get older, and this can allow our ego to get so far ahead of our capabilities that the only possible outcome we create for ourselves is disappointment.  I have often marveled at how, when I look back at my life, my biggest misfortunes laid the very groundwork for my largest successes.  This is a lesson not to be forgotten or overlooked.  One example is, early in my career, I had my business partner steal the company away from me.  I lost everything and felt crushed and betrayed, but from that misfortune, I pushed forward and moved to Moscow and created a new pathway for my life.  This in turn opened the door to many more complex and diverse experiences that I otherwise would never have had or even contemplated being possible if the motivating misfortune had not occurred.

We need to change the way we view our lives and what we benchmark them against.  So many of us are terrified of making mistakes, incurring failures or saying or doing the wrong things that we handicap ourselves and turn away from opportunities for growth and progress.  We need to accept and embrace that life is a constant series of mistakes and we will continue making them, as they are a result of pushing ourselves forward.  Often, we wrongly perceive things only through the prism of negatives or positives, when in fact, we have no idea what they are, as the consequences from these very events are yet to be determined.

We must accept that the path to happiness and contentment runs through failure and misfortune.  Misfortune, good fortune, joy, depression- they’re all cut from the same cloth and as such, we need to broaden our vision to accept failure, both public and private, as easily as we accept success and see all occurrences as opportunities to better ourselves or to find and take a different pathway forward as our life journey continues.  

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