Bad luck?

I needed a reminder of the “Good? Bad? Who knows?” story today.

There was a farmer in ancient China who used an old horse in his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills and when the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

A week later, the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills, and the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. He replied, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone again sympathized with the farmer over his bad luck. But the farmer’s reaction was, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and drafted every able-bodied youth they found. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they let him stay.

Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

I experienced a mishap today in what has felt like a couple weeks littered with a string of mishaps. A phase of bad luck possibly?

Then again, bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?

Paper by default

Every time I get a new kind of paper notice or bill, I save it until I find the organization’s /paperless site or paperless option on my account.

My guess – I don’t have data on this – is that I’m not alone. And it makes me wonder – what if paperless were the default option for anyone below the age of 50 (or 40)?

Perhaps we should do away with the “paper by default” assumption. It’s past time. And it’s cheaper too.

When in doubt, rethink those defaults.

Hello COVID, 2 reflections

We’ve been working through a cocktail of COVID-19 inspired disruption in the past week. It’s hard not to be awestruck at the power of an unseen set of microbes in bringing us to our knees.

I am grateful we got tagged now with less severe variants vs. before. But, more than ever, a week like this reminded me of 2 things –

(1) Being with people who care about you – parents and partners especially – when you are sick is a gift.

(2) When our health is “normal”, it is a really big deal. It is amazing how easy it is to take for granted.

Normal is a blessing we don’t think about and enjoy enough.

Life and laundry

When we’re young, we tend to think of life as a series of exams. At every step, the questions get harder and the feeling of achievement of making it to the other side feels correspondingly larger.

Over time, I’ve come to realize that doing the laundry/dishes or cleaning our home is a better analogy for life.

Regardless of how well you do it today, you’ll never conquer laundry or doing the dishes. More will always be waiting at the other end – whether you like it or not.

You can learn just as much as you decide to learn.

And you can find just as much joy as you want to find.

OTTM

Similar to one metric that matters (OMTM), there’s often just one thing that matters on our priority list for our day to be productive/successful.

It is the thing we delay getting started on, the one we try to put away for as long as possible.

The secret to being consistently productive is to recognize the “one thing that matters” and tackle it first thing.

King Richard

We watched King Richard recently – the story of Richard Williams on his quest to make Venus Williams and Serena Williams world champions. The movie was well done – the story arc was nice, and every actor did a great job.

Seeing the Williams sister in a grand slam final or semi-final was one of the defining tennis memories of my teenage years. That and marveling at Roger Federer’s grace. So, it was lovely to see the “founding story.”

The Williams sisters were a by-product of their father’s drive and determination to get out of a life with limited means. And the movie did a great job portraying the many sides of Richard Williams. He was stubborn, smart, emotional, bossy, supportive, encouraging, attention seeking, and driven all at once. He led the family to phenomenal results all things considered.

But it reminded me of the Polgar family – where the fate of the sisters was decided before they were born. As a parent myself, I found myself wondering about the nature of excellence and our parenting style.

We aren’t in the game of pushing our kids toward a particular destination – sport or otherwise. I’m hopeful there’ll be other ways to inspire a similar work ethic in our kids so they pursue mastery no matter which field they choose. Maybe I could channel my inner Richard Williams once they decide to commit to a path?

Or maybe I’m too privileged or naive or both.

Time will tell.

The librarian’s service

I saw a great story in James Clear’s “3-2-1” today.

Lillian Moore shares a quick story that reveals what really motivates people:

“A few months after my husband and I moved to a small Massachusetts town I grumbled to a resident about the poor service at the library, hoping she would repeat my complaints to the librarian. The next time I went to the library, the librarian had set aside two bestsellers for me and a new biography for my husband. What’s more, she appeared to be genuinely glad to see me.

Later I reported the miraculous change to my friend. “I suppose you told her how poor we thought the service was?” I asked.

“No,” she confessed. “In fact—I hope you don’t mind—I told her your husband was amazed at the way she had built up this small town library, and that you thought she showed unusually good taste in the new books she ordered.”

This reminded me of the parable of the wind and the sun. It is an idea I don’t implement often enough.