One of my favorite children’s books growing up was called
“
Fortunately, Unfortunately.”
It would go something like this:
“Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.
Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.
Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane.
Unfortunately, the motor exploded.
Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane.
Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute.”As a child, it was somewhat eye-opening to read this book and see how quickly adults believed life can and will change. It’s as if the older we get, the more we’ve learned to condition ourselves to expect that when things finally seem to be going well, brace yourself, because we all know the bad will inevitably come too. It’s just part of life, right?
But I’ll admit … as a kid I didn’t buy into this fortunately/unfortunately way of thinking very easily. In fact, after every ...