Everything happens for good

This is an old story of a king in India; who had a very close friend with whom he grew up. The King used to spend his lot of time along with his best friend. His friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) with optimism and remarking, “This is good, everything happens for good !” He always tried to look at the things with different perspective and find out positive impacts of whatever happens in life.

One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. They went in a dense forest and enjoying the adventure. While hunting, the friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The king took the gun from his friend and aimed at the target. When felt that aimed animal is right on target, the king fired the gun. But at this instance, something unpredictable happened.

The gun misfired and blown off the thumb of the king. His friend had apparently done something wrong while loading and preparing the gun. Both of them got shocked, and immediately first aid was done. After this, examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, “This is good, everything happens for good !” The King got angry that my thumb has been blown off, due to his mistake. Still his friend is saying, ” This is Good !”  The king replied with annoyance, “No, this is NOT good!” and immediately ordered to send his friend to jail. 

About couple of months later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to avoid. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his both hands, collected some wood, set up a stake, and bound him to the stake. As they came close to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious cannibals, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So the cannibals untied the king, and sent him on his way.

As the king returned home, he remembered the incident that had blown off his thumb and felt sad for his treatment to his friend. The king immediately went to the jail to apologize. The king requested his friend to forgive him and said. “You were right !!! It was good that my thumb was blown off on that day during hunting.” And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened and how cannibals freed him due to his missing thumb. The kind said ” I am very sorry for sending you to jail after getting annoyed on that day. It was a bad decision on my part. Please forgive me”

“No,” his friend replied, “That was good , everything happens for good !”

The king got surprised with his positivism and asked, “What do you mean, how was that good?” “How could it be good in any way that I sent my friend to jail for couple of months?” questioned the king. His friend smiled and replied, “If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you. The cannibals would have killed me and made me their food.”

Have a great day!