There’s an old Chinese folktale about a man whose horse runs away.

His neighbors come over to commiserate.

Terrible luck.

The man says, essentially, “Maybe.”

Then the horse comes back with several wild horses.

Amazing luck!

The man says, “Maybe.”

Then his son tries to ride one of the wild horses, falls off and breaks his leg.

Terrible luck!

“Maybe.”

Then the army comes to conscript young men for war but they leave his injured son behind.

Wonderful luck!

“Maybe.”

You get the idea.

It’s a lovely little lesson in how spectacularly bad we are at predicting whether something is actually good or bad.

Which brings me to everyday life.

You miss the elevator.

Annoying.

Maybe.

You spill coffee on your shirt.

Irritating.

Maybe.

Your train is delayed.

At the moment, this feels less like ancient Chinese wisdom and more like a personal attack.

Maybe.

Someone cancels plans.

You think, Great. Now what?

Maybe you needed the night on the couch.

Maybe the restaurant would have been terrible.

Maybe you were about to spend three hours listening to someone complain about their ex.

Maybe the universe just saved you from bad appetizers and emotional labor.

We spend so much energy labeling things good luck or bad luck while we’re still standing in the middle of the story.

The Chinese folktale reminds us that we rarely know the ending.

So when something silly goes wrong today, I’m going to try something different.

Instead of immediately declaring, This sucks, I’ll say

“Maybe.”

Which is considerably more psychologically healthy than my usual response:

“Are you kidding me?”

Ancient wisdom meets modern coping skills.

I suspect the old man would approve.