4-9 Nothing bad happens without something good coming out of it. No hay mal que por bien no venga.


Life goes in cycles and brings us both good and bad things. We get hit with moments of loss, hardship, crisis, upheaval, and when we're in the middle of those things, it's hard to believe that anything good can come of it. Of course it's overly simplistic to tell someone who's just lost his job that "something good will come of it." For the person who's worried about how to pay the bills, or unsure when a new job might appear, or for the person who genuinely liked the old job and wanted to keep it, it's upsetting to experience this kind of loss. Yet, very often a new job comes along that's better, or the person is prompted to change careers and do something more interesting or perhaps even move to a new location and meet new people, starting a whole new life elsewhere. The end of something opens a space for the beginning of something else. It's just a matter of shifting your perspective, to see the good when only the bad is staring you in the face.

Lucumí tradition teaches us that good and bad are connected; if we weren't aware of the existence of one, we wouldn't be able to perceive the other. The contrast between the two is what gives both meaning. The good isn't necessarily born from the bad, but passing through the bad first makes us appreciate and value the good that comes later. Sometimes old words of wisdom are more than a cliché. They speak universal truths about the nature of human life.