Good and Bad and learning something new
17 Mar 2014i missed the bus this morning. Normally i would consider that a bad thing, but i decided to make it an opportunity to learn something new. Every thing is a learning opportunity, especially failures, right? i think that’s why the following go maxim exists:
Lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible
And i found out that i can use this different bus route to shift my morning routine back by half an hour. When (if?) it warms up here in Rochester, i can ride my bike instead of walking to the stops and cut the time to get to work down by 30-40 mins.
Whether or not shifting my routine back a half an hour is good is another matter. i would like to get more sleep. Will this new route make my life better? Not sure yet.
This reminds me of an old zen story:
A farmer’s horse ran away. His neighbors gathered upon hearing the news and said sympathetically, “That’s such bad luck.”
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The horse returned on his own the next morning, and brought seven wild horses with it. “Look how many more horses you have now,” the neighbors exclaimed. “How lucky!”
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next day, the farmer’s son attempted to ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. “How awful,” the neighbors said. “It looks like your luck has turned for the worse again.”
The farmer simply replied, “Maybe.”
The following day, military officers came to town to conscript young men into the service. Seeing the son’s broken leg, they rejected him. The neighbors gathered round the farmer to tell him how fortunate he was.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
If there’s anything bad this situation revealed, it’s that i’m going to be a horrible old man. i have at least two options for getting a ride to work in these situations. Did i utilize either of them? No. i wanted to explore and “do this myself”.
If i have the same level of fierce independence in 50+ years i’m going to end up doing something stupid because i didn’t want to ask for help.