The T-Shirt Story: Turning Misfortune into Perspective

I just washed my favorite t-shirt and realized it had the lip cream stained from a few weeks ago. Although most of the color can be washed, there’s still a mark on the white part of the t-shirt (the color of the t-shirt is grey with white screen printing on it).

At first, I was really disappointed because I love it and it’s my go-to t-shirt most of the time. But then I thought, “Then it’ll make my t-shirt unique!“.

Also, the fact that the stain is not that noticeable.

This is such a trivial event in my life, yet I have learned that I can shift my perspective towards problems like that.

I guess life is as good as how we see it. Bad things can happen, but it’s not necessarily bad and vice versa.

This reminds me of the Chinese story about the concept of life and how should we see it.

There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day, his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful!” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

I had heard this story before and heard it again in October when I attended one of the sessions at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. I was there as a liaison for some of the writers. And one of them was Jin Young Lim, who wrote a book titled “The Dao of Flow,” and he told it during one of his sessions.

That story illustrates the Daoist philosophy of accepting life’s events without attaching a definitive label of good or bad. Our perception of events can change over time. What might be a misfortune could turn into a blessing one day, and vice versa.

I know for sure that my t-shirt story wouldn’t miraculously turn into a blessing or something. Still, it’s just good to get a reminder and reflect once in a while to avoid overreacting to everything immediately.