It was an evening of hot summer day. We were sitting on the benches under trees near the coffee outlet in our college and discussing about how our careers have progressed over the period. Almost every one of us was unhappy about the current status of their career. I was unhappier.
I was venting out my frustration (which happens often, nowadays) about the current status of my career which does not reflect the one I hoped for. I dissected my past decisions and how I did not grab the opportunities which were presented to me in the past. I was searching for the root cause of my current partial failure. I thought my own decisions along with the bad luck were responsible for this situation.
To my ranting, my colleague calmly replied, ‘Jo hota hai, achche ke liye hota hai - whatever happens, happens for a good.’
My immediate internal reaction was the total rejection of this thought. How can someone say that their bad fortune has happened for good reasons? I replied to her, ‘Jo hua hai, bura hua hai - whatever has happened, happened for a bad.’ As someone who believes that every effect has to have a cause (many times in our control), the idea of just trusting the universe felt like a surrender. I was thinking ‘if we simply accept that whatever happens is for the best, progress stalls.’
We finished our coffee, and I walked away convinced I was right. But over the next few days, her words refused to leave my head. I started to wonder if I had completely misunderstood her point. What if ‘jo hota hai, achchhe ke liye hota hai’ wasn't a sign of surrender, but actually a necessary framework for navigating a life where, despite our best calculations, we are never fully in control.
We are conditioned by modern culture to believe we are the sole architects of our destiny. When we operate in this mindset, high accountability is our default state. We believe that if we just work harder and plan better, success is a certainty. But the danger of this worldview is what happens when things go wrong (as they usually do). We turn the focus inward, torturing ourselves over past actions, ‘If only I hadn’t taken this role, or if only I had studied for that exam harder.’
The Illusion of Choice
We place a lot of pressure on our choices, treating our careers as if they are isolated, closed systems. We look back at a decision and label it a ‘bad choice’ simply because the outcome wasn't what we wanted. But this is a flawed analysis. We make the best decisions we can with the data we possess at that exact moment. You can design a very good strategy, but if the environment changes, the outcome will change with it. A perfect choice can still yield a negative result, and a terrible choice can sometimes lead to a breakthrough. We cannot judge the quality of our decision-making solely by the outcome.
The Role of Luck
Luck is the hidden variable we hate to acknowledge. We love to claim our successes are due to our own brilliance, but we rarely admit that being in the right place at the right time, or a sudden shift in the job market has a massive role in career trajectory. Just as we cannot take all the credit for our good luck, we must stop taking all the blame for our bad luck. Sometimes, despite flawless execution, external forces push against you. Blaming yourself for a random string of unfortunate events or systemic shifts is unfair.
The Psychological Shock Absorber
This is where ‘Jo hota hai, achchhe ke liye hota hai’ finally clicked for me. I had initially viewed the phrase as dropping the control over our life. I was wrong. It is not about giving up your agency. It is a psychological shock absorber. In any system subjected to vibrations, you have to design dampers to absorb the vibrations (energy in the system, actually). Without them, the entire structure fractures under stress. The human mind requires the exact same protection.
The true breakthrough came when I realized my colleague and I weren't actually arguing about the same thing. We were just looking at different sides of the timeline. My obsession with agency, choices, and effort applies strictly to the future: the variables we can still influence. Her philosophy of acceptance applies strictly to the past: the outcomes that are already locked in. The realization was liberating: I don't have to choose between ambition and acceptance.
It comes down to a simple paradox. You need my approach to act as the prime mover (engine or electric motor). It provides the necessary forward momentum. But a powerful engine bolted to a rigid frame will eventually tear itself apart if subjected to rough road (and hence, vibrations). Her approach ‘Jo hota hai, achchhe ke liye hota hai’ is the suspension system. It doesn’t slow the vehicle down, it absorbs the unpredictable shocks of bad luck and failed plans so the engine can keep running without reducing itself to pieces.
The ancient Stoics had a concept for this called Amor Fati, which translates to ‘a love of one's fate.’ Amor Fati is not about passively sitting back and letting life happen to you. It means pursuing your goals, but the exact second an outcome is finalized, no matter how disappointing or unfair it feels, you immediately embrace it as a necessary part of the design.
I finally realized that this mindset is not about mere survival, it is about growth. The author Nassim Nicholas Taleb perfectly captures the essence of what the synthesis of these two different views of looking at the things taught me.
In his book Antifragile, he writes: ‘Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire.’
Likewise, you should want to be the fire and wish for the wind. The next time a plan fails, do not waste your energy fighting the reality of the situation. Accept the new variables, find the hidden advantage, and let the wind feed the fire.
