Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

"Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect."
-  Margaret Mitchell

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who used an old mare to till his fields. One day, the mare escaped into the woods and the farmer’s neighbors get together and sympathized with the old man over his bad luck. The farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

A week later, the mare returned with a young stallion from the woods and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his great and good luck. His reply

Survival lesson

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

- Dale Carnegi

Once upon a time, on a hot summer day a farmer’s donkey fell down a deep well. For hours on end, the poor animal cried out in distress as the farmer tried to imagine a way to get the donkey out. Finally he determined, since the poor donkey was really rather old and not worth saving, besides, he decided to use this accident to his advantage by covering over the well.

Thus, he invited all of his neighbors over to help him cover the well and put the old donkey out of its misery.  Courteously, the other farmers dropped by, grabbed shovels and began to scoop dirt down into the well.

The donkey realized what was happening and cried out wretchedly in despair.  After some time, he quickly quieted down and, much to their amazement, looked up at them almost calculatingly. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was amazed at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something incredible. He would simply shake it off, and climbed on top of the falling dirt.

Neighbor’s dirty laundry

"One should look long and carefully at oneself before passing judgment on others." 

- Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)

A young couple moved in to their newly bought house. One morning, young wife looked out her window at her neighbor’s laundry hanging on the line and began making remarks about how dirty the laundry still was.

Days went by, and still the neighbor didn’t learn how to clean her dirty laundry properly. As time went by, every day when the neighbor hanged the laundry, young wife continued to complain: “Hadn’t she heard of bleach?  Was she using cheapest detergent? Worse yet, wasn’t she aware of the fact that everyone would see the dingy towels hanging on the clothes line.” All this time, the husband was silent and it seemed that he was not interested in this issue.