Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it is Eric from the one you feed
Speaker 1: back with another mini episode, And this week I want
Speaker 1: to tell another story, another parable, so to speak, and
Speaker 1: this one is an old Taoist parable, and it goes
Speaker 1: like this. There's a man who is living in a
Speaker 1: village with his family, and they own a beautiful horse.
Speaker 1: It's the only thing they own that's of any value.
Speaker 1: And one day the stable gate is left open and
Speaker 1: that horse runs away, and all the people of the
Speaker 1: village come and they they share their sympathy with the man.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that you lost your horse. What a
Speaker 1: terrible thing to happen. And the man says, could be good,
Speaker 1: could be bad. And a few days later that horse returns,
Speaker 1: followed by a beautiful stallion. So now the man has
Speaker 1: two the most beautiful horses in the town. And the
Speaker 1: villagers come and they say, oh, what wonderful luck. Now
Speaker 1: you've got a second beautiful horse. That's so great, And
Speaker 1: the man says, could be good, could be bad. A
Speaker 1: little while later, his son is out riding this new
Speaker 1: beautiful stallion and falls off and breaks his leg. Again.
Speaker 1: The village people, not the band in this case, but
Speaker 1: the people who live in the village, just so there's
Speaker 1: no confusion. The people of the village will say, come
Speaker 1: to him and say, oh, that is so terrible that
Speaker 1: your son fell and broke his leg, and the man says, well,
Speaker 1: could be good, could be bad. Another short while later,
Speaker 1: a war breaks out and all the young men in
Speaker 1: the village are drafted into war and killed at battle,
Speaker 1: except for this man's son, and the story just goes
Speaker 1: on and on and on. Obviously, this is an example
Speaker 1: of what the Buddhists would call equanimity, this ability to
Speaker 1: stay calm and present in the midst of a lot
Speaker 1: of things swirling around, and not to add all our
Speaker 1: own storylines to it. So for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: if those events happened to us, we would be absolutely
Speaker 1: convinced that one was good one was bad, and we
Speaker 1: would we would react as if that was the case.
Speaker 1: So our best. We lose one thing that's very valuable
Speaker 1: to us, and we become very very upset, and we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves the stories that go along with that, Oh
Speaker 1: it's awful this, I'll never get anything like that again,
Speaker 1: or whatever whatever a personal version of that is. And
Speaker 1: then something great happens, and and we react to that
Speaker 1: and think what a wonderful thing, and then something bad happens,
Speaker 1: and and that is life. And I think that we
Speaker 1: just don't have I don't have a very good ability
Speaker 1: to understand what the events in my life mean. In
Speaker 1: a broader picture, we had Robert B. Swas diner on
Speaker 1: who talked about this idea of emotional time travel. We're
Speaker 1: terrible at predicting what will make us happy in the future.
Speaker 1: We're just it's not something we're good at. So I
Speaker 1: think that this idea of of equanimity and h even
Speaker 1: if we're able to open our mind to the fact
Speaker 1: that these things that are happening might not be the
Speaker 1: worst things in the world or the best things in
Speaker 1: the world, and to stay present to what's happening for me,
Speaker 1: a lot of the worst things in the world at
Speaker 1: the time turned out to be the very best things
Speaker 1: that could have happened. An example of this is when
Speaker 1: my son, Jordan's mother was three months pregnant with him.
Speaker 1: I was laid off from my first professional real job anywhere,
Speaker 1: and I just did not think I had the skills
Speaker 1: to really land anything else that good. But it turned
Speaker 1: out to be one of the best things that happened
Speaker 1: to me because where I went after that completely changed
Speaker 1: my life and my career. And so there's another example
Speaker 1: of I was convinced that this terrible thing had happened.
Speaker 1: Everybody around me was convinced that this terrible thing has
Speaker 1: happened and did not turn out to be that way.
Speaker 1: And the honest truth is that has happened over and
Speaker 1: over and over again in my life, things that seem
Speaker 1: terrible at the time in wreck respect, over a period
Speaker 1: of time turn out to have been very good things. Now,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that when bad things happen in
Speaker 1: that moment that they don't hurt or they don't feel bad.
Speaker 1: Of course they do. But it's it's keeping that perspective
Speaker 1: about what it is in the grand picture and not
Speaker 1: making it worse by projecting all sorts of things onto it.
Speaker 1: That it's not I'm not a proponent of the proponent
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm anyway. I don't believe in the idea
Speaker 1: that everything happens for a reason. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people do, and I think that's fine. I can't
Speaker 1: certainly can't say that it doesn't. But that's not something
Speaker 1: I operate under, is that everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 1: But I do think that we can make meaning out
Speaker 1: of anything that happens to us. Sean Aker has a
Speaker 1: quote that I really like where he says, things do
Speaker 1: not necessarily happen for the best, but some people are
Speaker 1: able to make the best out of things that happen.
Speaker 1: And that's really the attitude that I think is helpful.
Speaker 1: Is to spend less time fight what has happened, spend
Speaker 1: less time projecting fears and doubts and all sorts of
Speaker 1: things onto that event, except what is happening as it is,
Speaker 1: and see where that leads us. What opportunities does that
Speaker 1: that lead to. There's that old saying that when one
Speaker 1: door opens, Nope, there's that old saying that says when
Speaker 1: one door closes, another opens, and I think that is
Speaker 1: absolutely true. However, there is often time that is in
Speaker 1: that dark hallway between the one door is closed, the
Speaker 1: other hasn't opened, and you're stumbling down that hallway in
Speaker 1: the dark, and I think the again, back to the
Speaker 1: general principle or the the idea behind that parable that
Speaker 1: I told, is not to make it worse, Not to
Speaker 1: tell ourselves scary stories about the monsters that are in
Speaker 1: that hallway. We might be afraid of the dark, which
Speaker 1: is fine, but we again we need to let ourselves
Speaker 1: not not let our minds run away with us about
Speaker 1: what else might be in that hallway. Anyway, hopefully that
Speaker 1: is helpful and uh, thanks for listening as always, so
Speaker 1: glad that you are with us and we'll talk again soon.
Speaker 1: BYEM