The Uncertainty Principle

This morning, a friend mentioned about the lucky guy who struck the jackpot prize of Rm20 million in the Sports Toto draw. Obviously, everyone of us reacted with envy and wish that we could be as lucky one day. It seems he had announced that he will give half to his wife.

But then again, I am not too sure how their lives will be played out in the future. There is always the problem of security and fear that some bad guys might come to know about it. Then there are those poor relatives who might show their affection which they had so far neglected to, with stories of how they needed some money for a certain worthy cause, etc. etc.

This story of the uncertainty principle is just the reverse:

Two sailors ran into each other in a pub. Over a few beers, one of the men told the other about his last voyage: "After a month at sea," he said, "we discovered our masts had been eaten through by termites! Almost nothing left of them."

"That's terrible," said the second sailor.

"That's what I thought at first too," the first sailor said, "but it turned out to be good luck. As soon as we took the sails down to fix the masts, we were hit by a squall so suddenly and so hard, it would surely have blown us over if our sails were up at the time."

"How lucky!"

"That's exactly what I thought at the time, too. But because our sails were down, we couldn't steer ourselves, and because of the wind, we were blown onto a reef. The hole in the hull was too big to fix. We were stranded."

"That is bad luck indeed."

"That's what I thought, too, when it first happened. But we all made it to the beach alive and had plenty to eat. But now here's the real kicker: While we were on the island whining about our terrible fate, we discovered a buried treasure!"

As this story illustrates, you don't know if an event is "good" or "bad" except maybe in retrospect, and even then you don't really know because life keeps going. The story's not over yet. Just because something hasn't turned out to be an advantage yet doesn't mean it is not ever going to.