I was reading Huang’s interpretation of the third changing line of hexagram 25 Innocence. The following words affected me quite a bit:
Being truthful is virtuous, but it does not necessarily bring good fortune all the time. The case of the third line is that of a tied-up cow being carried off by a passerby. It is an unexpected misfortune because the one encountering this misfortune is doing nothing wrong. The truth holds that when one encounters this kind of misfortune, a truthful person still holds to being truthful.
This line carries an important message – one should not have any anticipation of good fortune or misfortune, blessing or calamity. One just does the best he or she can and lets things take their natural course.
I suppose rightly or wrongly, I do have a subconscious expectation that being a good person should translate to blessings and good fortune. The above words jarred my soul and unsurfaced my inner “rules” of living. It is kinda upsetting and sad that regardless of the good that one does, one might still meet with bad things. Equally, a badass person may receive blessings in spite of his or her actions*. This reminds me of the title of a book “When bad things happen to good people”.
The above message is sobering.
* For my Christian siblings out there, this post is NOT about believing in Christ and being saved.