{"id":88577,"date":"2017-03-20T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=88577"},"modified":"2017-03-13T15:30:52","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T15:30:52","slug":"it-is-all-for-the-best-a-lesson-in-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/03\/it-is-all-for-the-best-a-lesson-in-optimism\/","title":{"rendered":"It Is All for the Best: A Lesson in Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A king went hunting with his adviser but lost his thumb in an unfortunate accident. His adviser told him, &#8220;It is all for the best.&#8221; The king was furious, and as soon as they arrived at the palace he put his adviser in jail.<\/p>\n<p>A month later, the king went hunting alone and entered deeper and deeper into the forest. Suddenly, he was surrounded by a group of men from a primitive tribe who seized him and wanted to sacrifice him to their god. But when they saw that his thumb was missing, they let him go; they did not want to sacrifice an imperfect man fearing the god would be angry.<\/p>\n<p>So the king was able to return home to his palace. He immediately freed his adviser and told him that he had been right after all. He profusely apologized saying, &#8220;I should never have thrown you in jail.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The adviser said, &#8220;It was all for the best.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How come?\u201d the king asked.<\/p>\n<p>The adviser explained, &#8220;Because otherwise they would have sacrificed me!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>____________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/dietrich-fischer.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-65349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/dietrich-fischer-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><em>Dietrich Fischer (1941-2015) from M\u00fcnsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. 1986-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University. He has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities and been a consultant to the United Nations. He was co-founder, with Johan Galtung, of the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/\" >TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> <em>in 1993<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Excerpted from Dietrich Fischer&#8217;s <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tup\/index.php?book=44\" >Stories to Inspire You<\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tup\/index.php?book=44\" > &#8211; TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A king went hunting with his adviser but lost his thumb in an unfortunate accident. His adviser told him, &#8220;It is all for the best.&#8221; The king was furious, and as soon as they arrived at the palace he put his adviser in jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}