At TED Stacy Kramer tells a three-minute story about an unwanted gift that thoroughly enriched her life.

In an earlier wordier post, I explored this same idea, but perhaps it’s now time to add Stacy’s type of gift to my list of “bad” things.

Bad things often open good doors–I’m certain of this. Obstacles often provoke us to pick better solutions that we otherwise would have–perhaps this idea is sometimes captured by the term exaptation. Thus, in our wild and wacky world, down can sometimes be up, and it often has nothing to do with George Orwell. In many cases, it’s part of the natural order that unveils itself only piece by piece to short-sighted human animals like you and me.