There's an old Chinese story, first written down in the Huainanzi over two thousand years ago, about a farmer near the frontier whose horse runs off. His neighbors call it bad luck. Maybe, he says. The horse comes back leading a second, wilder horse, and the neighbors call it good luck. Maybe, he says again. His son tries to ride the new horse, falls, and breaks his leg. Bad luck, they say. Maybe. Soldiers arrive conscripting every able-bodied young man for a brutal war, and take everyone except the son with the broken leg. In a well-known modern retelling, that one word, maybe, is all the farmer ever answers with. He isn't being coy. He's refusing to rule on events before they've finished happening. This morning, when news lands, good or bad, try answering it privately with the same word before you decide what it means.