Mindset story: The king's lesson how even a bad situation can have a positive side

There was once a king who ruled a kingdom on the edge of the then-known world. The king used to spend a lot of his time with his best friend growing up often listening to his advice. His friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life, be it positive or negative with optimism. To every situation that happened, he usually responded, “This is good, this happened for a reason!” The king even after all these years was still surprised by his friend’s perspective about the positive side of every situation that happened in life, even though everyone else believed they were not good at all.

One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. They went into a dense forest just outside the borders of their kingdom, to the uncharted land. While hunting, the friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. When the king saw the animal that he wanted to shoot he took a gun from his friend and aimed at the target. When the king felt that his aim was just right he fired the gun. And at that instance, the gun misfired and blew off the thumb of the king. His friend had apparently done something wrong while loading and preparing the gun or at least that was the first thing that came to the king’s mind. Both of them were shocked by what just happened, and the king’s friend immediately performed first aid on the wound. After he was done he examined the king and remarked as usual about the situation, “You are ok my friend. And this is good, everything happens for a good reason.”

The king got angry that his thumb has been blown off, due to his friend’s mistake. And even worse his friend was talking that there was a good reason that this happened. Finally, the king had enough of his friends nonsense and yelled at him, “No, this is NOT good!” His friend was still insisting that it was. That was the last straw and the king immediately ordered his guard to throw his friend to jail. About a couple of months later, the king was hunting in an area beyond the borders that he knew he should have avoided but his need for the hunt got the best of him. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, collected some wood, set up a stake and fire, and bounded him to the stake. As they were about to throw the king into the fire, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious cannibals, they never ate anyone that wasn’t whole. So the cannibals untied the king and sent him on his way.

As the king returned home, he remembered the incident that caused him to lose his thumb. He started to feel sad about how he treated his friend. So he immediately went to the jail to apologize and set his friend free. Once there the king requested his friend to forgive him and said, “You were right my friend! It was good that my thumb was blown off on that day during our hunt.” The king proceeded to share with his friend about what had just happened and how cannibals freed him due to his missing thumb. He again apologized, ”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, my dear friend.”

“No need for that my dear friend,” the king’s friend replied, “It was good that you have sent me to jail! Can’t you see the positive side of your action?” The king was baffled by his friend’s positivism and asked, “What do you mean, how was that good? How could it be good in any way that I sent my best friend to jail for a couple of months?” His friend smiled and replied, “If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you on your last hunt. Since I am not missing any body parts the cannibals would have killed me and ate me. So you see my dear friend there is a positive side to your action. You just need to see the whole context.”