The Old Man Who Lost His Horse

This story comes from ancient China, about a wise old man living near the northern frontier. When his prized horse ran away, his neighbors offered sympathy. "How do you know this is bad luck?

" he replied calmly. Days later, the horse returned with a magnificent wild stallion. The neighbors congratulated him on his fortune.

"How do you know this is good luck?" he asked again. Soon after, his son broke his leg while training the new horse.

More sympathy poured in. The old man remained unmoved: "How do you know this is misfortune?" When war broke out, all young men were drafted except his son, who couldn't fight due to his injury.

The story teaches that apparent losses often become unexpected gains, and what seems like good fortune might lead to trouble. Life's events are interconnected in ways we can't immediately see.

The old shepherd's calm "how do you know?" is doing the heavy lifting in this stick. You came to the cylinder carrying a romantic situation that already has a verdict attached: the text you didn't get back, the relationship that ended badly, the person who turned out to be someone else entirely, or the connection that never quite became one. Drawing 塞翁失馬 suggests the stick is less interested in the verdict than in how quickly you reached it.

Notice what happens when you re-read the verse a second time. The shepherd doesn't deny the loss; he simply refuses to finalise its meaning. That restraint is what the stick is reflecting back at you. Right now you may be in the part of the story where the horse has run off, and every neighbour at the family dinner table has an opinion about whether you should be sad, relieved, or worried. The Average grade is honest: this isn't a verse promising that the lost person will return transformed, nor that someone better is already on the way. It's pointing to the discomfort of not yet knowing, and asking whether you can sit inside that discomfort without forcing a conclusion.

The deeper mirror here is about how you narrate your own romantic history. If every past disappointment in your story is filed under "wasted years" or "dodged a bullet", the shepherd would gently raise an eyebrow at both.

Stop telling the full story of this relationship for two weeks, to friends and to yourself; the narrative is still cooling. When someone asks how you're doing with it, try "too early to say" and notice how that feels in your mouth. Write down one thing you genuinely don't yet understand about what happened, and leave the question open instead of answering it.

Resist the urge to either block-and-burn or romanticise. The shepherd's wisdom isn't detachment, it's patience with unfinished meaning.