Perspective and adversity

Often we have perspective on an event after a lot of time has passed. What would it be like to have that perspective earlier in the game? Pondering the following can help. (It's a passage from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.)

Do you truly know what is positive and what is negative? Do you have the total picture? There have been many people for whom limitation, failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility, and compassion. It made them more real.

Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Even a brief illness or an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life, what ultimately matters and what doesn't.

Seen from a higher perspective, conditions are always positive. To be more precise: they are neither positive nor negative. They are as they are. And when you live in complete acceptance of what is which is the only sane way to live - there is no "good" or "bad" in your life anymore. There is only a higher good - which includes the "bad."

It helps me to let go of judging situations as "good" or "bad" if I cultivate "don't know" mind. I really don't know. Something may seem bad when it happens and yet I may truly benefit from it down the road a bit. If I just remember that I truly don't know then I'm much more likely simply to be in acceptance rather than judgment.