The silver lining
A friend of mine lost his job. He had been working there for five years and was very upset about the situation. My response was:
"Congratulations."
Of course, that wasn't the answer he had hoped for. But it was an honest answer from my perspective and absolutely not intended as a joke at his expense.
The thing is, for the past six months he had complained about his job almost every day. I couldn't even remember the last time he had said anything positive about it. Everything was wrong, bad, and negative - all the time.
He still had a severance package for a while after being laid off, which he used for a "vacation" and a trip abroad. He applied for various jobs and after two months, he had found a new position. Shortly thereafter, he told me:
"You were right! I refused to see it then, but being laid off was the best thing that could have happened to me. The new job is the best I've ever had!"
Anyone could have seen what I saw. Anyone except the person it concerned.
Why? Because we get scared and frustrated when we can't control what happens. We want to be in control, we want to have power over our lives, we want to be the one saying, "I quit!"
But it's not possible to control everything, no matter how much we want to. Life doesn't work that way. Shit happens (read: life happens), and sometimes there's nothing we can do about the situation.
When we start to realize and accept this inevitable truth, when we loosen our grip, it's as if life is starting to work for us instead of against us. When we let go of the false sense of control, we let opportunities in.