Murphy's Law ...

It is probably the most obvious "fact" of life - if anything could possibly go wrong, it will. For example, this morning when I was headed into work with a friend who had to be in central London by 9am. This would have to be the same day that the Victoria line decides to run extra slow, and also King's Cross station (where my friend had to change trains) becomes overcrowded :-/ We got into King's Cross at around 9:45, and she only had to go another couple of stations on the Nothern line, so hopefully it wasn't too bad and she still made it on time (or at worst only 5-10 mins late)

Of course I am thankful that Murphy's 2nd Law ("When somethine goes wrong, it will be in the worst possible way!!") didn't come into effect :-) ... in general I am the kind of guy who tries to see the silver lining in every cloud, and shrug of the minor tribulations of daily living with a throw-away "C'est la vie". Of course, I have to be careful not to be too let this tendency go too far since sometimes the people around are not that receptive to looking at the bright side of what, to them, is a very stressful experience. But I wonder whether it is a general trend that we always seem to focus on the negatives of day-to-day situations, when in reality things are not *that* bad and we really have lots to be glad and happy about. Maybe it is the fact that so much news focusses on what is going wrong in the world, and over time this shapes our attitude to look for the downside - coz if it was all good, it is not really worth telling people about!

I sometimes catch myself thinking the worst in a particular situation, or remembering the worst aspect of a person's behaviour towards me, and can just feel the negativity sweeping through my mind and body. This can be an almost reflexive reaction in some cases - but then, provided I make some effort to also look for that silver lining in the situation, as time passes I remember less and less of the -ve things and more of the +ve. Which, I have to say, is quite a blessing :-) ... I read the following story some time ago, which I feel illustrates this attitude quite nicely:

Two men travelling through the desert, and one day for some reason one man hits the other. The man who got hit wrote "Today my friend hit me" in the sand, and the two of them walked on. A few days later, tired and thirsty they stumble into an oasis and the first man helps his friend, who is on the point of collapse, get some water. This time the man finds a stone and carves the words "Today my friend saved my life". The first man, who had wondered about the previous behaviour, was even more puzzled by this and asked his friend why he had written those things in that way. To which the second man replied - "When a person hurts you, your anger should last as if they were words written in sand; but when a person helps you, your gratitude should last as if they were words written in stone"

From a Buddhist perspective, I think this is the sentiment being referred to in the Dhammapada, where it is written that the Buddha said:

'He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me'
-- for those who brood on this, hostility isn't stilled.
'He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me'
-- for those who don't brood on this, hostility is stilled.

I can't remember the context in which this was said - something I should look up when I get home tonight :-)