Good or Bad, who knows?

Some time ago I read about a Buddhist saying which says: “Good or bad, who knows?”. The notion behind this saying is that you should never condemn a situation which didn’t work out as planned. I want to explain the notion of this saying with a situation I experienced yesterday.

My actual plans

Yesterday was my grandmother's birthday. My actual plan was to visit her with my mother at around 12 in the noon. Just a few minutes before 12 I had a bad gut feeling. I had an appointment at the bank at 3 PM and I thought this will be too stressful. At around 12 I decided to visit her afterward. My mother stuck to her plan and she visited her at 12 in the noon.

My Drive to the Bank

Just before 3 PM I drove to the bank which is located around 12 km from my home. During the drive, I recognized that the steering wheel was very shaky. My first thought was that this shakiness is probably caused by my tires which are not correctly balanced. When I arrived at the bank I checked the tires in the front very briefly and I smelled a nasty rubber smell. The whole front left tire was completely hot and the brake completely overheated.

Cooldown

During my appointment, the brakes and the tire cooled down and I drove directly to the garage next to my home. Where 70 km/h was the limit I drove 60 km/h. I even considered this short distance of 12 km as pretty dangerous without a properly working brake.
Well, my car is now in the garage and I’m waiting for a status update during the day.

Suicidal Trip

I guess that if I would have driven to my grandmother at 12 noon with my mother we would have caused probably a serious accident or in the worst case we would have died. Thank god that I listened to my gut feeling.
When I told the story to my mother in the evening, she also admitted that she has had a bad feeling just before 12 noon. Both of us had a bad feeling about driving with my car to my grandmother at 12 noon. Fortunately, I decided to drive first of all to the bank appointment and not to my grandmother who lives around 40 km far away. This decision probably saved my and our lives.

The Exam

In the evening I saw an Instagram photo of a classmate who apparently studied very hard for an upcoming exam. I asked her: “Do you really think that the law exam on Thursday will be that hard?”. She replied: “The law exam was today”.
I missed the law exam. I thought about the whole story again: Would I’ve driven to the university in the noon - which is also around 40 km far away from my home - I would also not have detected the malicious brakes. The brakes would probably have gotten so hot that they probably burst the tire and in the worst case my life.

Good or Bad, who knows?

This was again a moment where I remembered the Buddhist saying: “Good bad, who knows?”. Some people may have become upset about the fact that they missed an exam. I thought about it twice. Is it good or bad that I missed this exam? My gut feeling tells me it was good. I’m still alive :-)