The One You Feed - Mini Episode: The Parable of the Farmer and the Horse

Episode Date: January 19, 2015

Today we discuss another parable and talk about learning to live with equanimity.  Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, it is Eric from The One You Feed back with another mini episode. And this week I want to tell another story, another parable, so to speak. And this one is an old Taoist parable and it goes like this. There's a man who is living in a village with his family and they own a beautiful horse. It's the only thing they own that's of any value. And one day, the stable gate is left open, and that horse runs away. And all

the people of the village come, and they share their sympathy with the man. I'm so sorry that you lost your horse. What a terrible thing to happen. And the man says, could be good, could be bad. And a few days later, that horse returns followed by a beautiful stallion. So now the man has two of the most beautiful horses in the town. And the villagers come and they say, oh, what wonderful luck. Now you've got a second beautiful horse that's so great. And the man says, could be good, could be bad. A little while later, his son is out riding this new beautiful stallion and falls off and breaks his leg. Again, the village people, not the band in this case, but the people who live in the village, just so there's no confusion. The people of the village will say, come to him and say, oh, that is so terrible that your son fell and broke his leg.

And the man says, well, could be good, could be bad. and broke his leg. And the man says, well, could be good, could be bad. Another short while later, a war breaks out and all the young men in the village are drafted into war and killed at battle except for this man's son. And the story just goes on and on and on, obviously. This is an example of what the Buddhists would call equanimity. This ability to stay calm and present in the midst of a lot of things swirling around and not to add all our own storylines to it. So for a lot of us, if those events happened to us, we would be absolutely convinced that one was good, one was bad, and we would react as if that was the case. So our best, we lose one thing that's very valuable to us and we become

very, very upset. And we tell ourselves the stories that go along with that. Oh, it's awful. This, I'll never get anything like that again, or whatever, whatever our personal version of that is. And then something great happens. And we react to that and think what a wonderful thing. And then something bad happens. And, and that is life. And I think that we just don't have, I don't have, a very good ability to understand what the events in my life mean in a broader picture. We had Robert Biswas Diner on who talked about this idea of emotional time travel. We're terrible at predicting what will make us happy in the future. We're just, what will make us happy in the future.

We're just, it's not something we're good at. So I think that this idea of equanimity and even if we're able to open our mind to the fact that these things that are happening might not be the worst things in the world or the best things in the world and to stay present to what's happening. For me, a lot of the worst things in the world at the time turned out to be the very best things that could have happened. stay present to what's happening. For me, a lot of the worst things in the world at the time turned

out to be the very best things that could have happened. An example of this is when my son Jordan's mother was three months pregnant with him. I was laid off from my first professional real job anywhere, and I just did not think I had the skills to really land anything else that good, but it turned out to be one of the best things that happened to me because where I went after that completely changed my life and my career. And so there's another example of I was convinced that this terrible thing had happened. Everybody around me was convinced that this terrible thing has happened and did not turn out to be that way. And the honest truth is that has happened over and over and over again

in my life. Things that seemed terrible at the time, in retrospect, over a period of time, turn out to have been very good things. Now that does not mean that when bad things happen in that moment that they don't hurt or they don't feel bad. Of course they do. But it's keeping that perspective about what it is in the grand picture and not making it worse by projecting all sorts of things onto it that it's not. I'm not a proponent of the, a proponent sounds like I'm, anyway, I don't believe in the idea that everything happens for a reason. I know a lot of people do and I think that's fine. I can't, I certainly can't say that it doesn't, but that's not something I operate under, is that everything

happens for a reason. But I do think that we can make meaning out of anything that happens to us. Sean Aker has a quote that I really like where he says, things do not necessarily happen for the best, but some people are able to make the best out of things that happen. And that's really the attitude that I think is helpful, is to spend less time fighting what has happened, spend less time projecting fears and doubts and all sorts of things onto that event, accept what is happening as it is, and see where that leads us. What opportunities does that lead to? There's that old saying that when one door opens, nope. There's

that old saying that says when one door closes, another opens. And I think that is absolutely true. However, there is often time that it's in that dark hallway between the one door is closed, the other hasn't opened, and you're stumbling down that hallway in the dark. And I think the, again, back to the general principle or the idea behind that parable that I told is not to make it worse, not to tell ourselves scary stories about the monsters that are in that hallway. We might be afraid of the dark, which is fine. But again, we need to let ourselves not let our minds run away with us about what else might be in that hallway.

let ourselves not, not let our minds run away with us about what else might be in that hallway. Anyway, hopefully that is helpful. And, uh, thanks for listening as always. So glad that you are with us and we'll talk again soon. Bye. Thank you.