The Story of a Chinese Farmer 🧑🌾
Good Morning,
I was scrolling through social media aimlessly like the Gen Z that I am when I came across this interesting short story written by Allan Watts it’s called “The story of the Chinese Farmer”, it’s an interesting one trust me and I know you all will like it so here it is.
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
What we think is our greatest misfortune could turn out to be our greatest blessing (someone should quote that 😂) anyway we all move through life classifying events as either good or bad but in reality it’s just life.
I graduated from Secondary school in 2018 or as the posh version of you will call it High school and on paper I should have graduated last year but I just finished 300L in 2024 while almost all my mates are done with school or will be done next year… but here is the kicker I am actually happy I’m not done because the challenges I have faced over the last few years have made me who I am, I have learnt a lot from my mistakes, setbacks and successes which I wouldn’t have had if everything went right the way it was supposed to.
Not gaining admission the first year meant I had to explore a bit, not getting to study what I love meant I knew I had to find my passion outside school that will make me happy… what I’m trying to say is that our paths in life is not some parallel line we have to follow, my path at 16 is not the same as my life path now, I mean at 16 I wanted to be an engineer/a YouTuber, at 7 I wanted to be a banker, and now I want to build businesses and hopefully change people’s lives through my way of thinking.
Our dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling and changing course, this is me trying to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now… it will probably change, maybe I actually fall in love with pharmacy and actually practice in the future or maybe I don’t but that’s okay because it is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique, it’s not easy but if you accept your misfortunes and handle it right… your perceived failure can be a catalyst for your profound reinvention!
Be the Chinese farmer in your life story, take everything as it is and just LIVE.
Have the courage to be Different!
Thank you for reading,
Have a great week.
Written by Alhassan Abdulmajeed.
Quote of the Day:
"The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them."
— Bernard M. Baruch
Book Recommendations
Non-Fiction: "The Obstacle Is the Way" by Ryan Holiday
Fiction: "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
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Really interesting, I had to also learn this,but through the hard way, might be a for a reason, i mean to learn something, you need to go through a situation that gives you an opportunity to learn it.