It just may be great news when things don't go as planned

Banksy is a British street artist who has been active for decades. He has spray painted his artistic expressions on streets, bridges and walls all around the world.

In October 2018, Sotheby’s auctioned a framed copy of Girl with Red Balloon, a Banksy work of art. The winning bid came in at £1,042,000.

As the auctioneer lowered the gavel to end the auction, the audience applauded. The applause turned to gasps as the painting began to self-destruct.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Banksy had installed a shredder in the frame twelve years earlier, intending to shred the painting should it ever go to auction as a statement against art capitalism. The audience watched in shock as the painting emerged from the bottom of the frame shredded into vertical strips.

Sometimes life doesn’t go as we hope it will. Things we value get torn apart. They unexpectedly self-destruct before our eyes. A relationship ends or we lose a job. The stock market crashes or we get the diagnosis from the doctor that we feared. Life is full of surprises, some welcomed and some not.

When Girl with Red Ballon was shredded at auction, the questions began. Will Sotheby’s reimburse the winning bidder? Does the person even want a refund? Will they choose to keep the shredded painting, despite the damage?

The winning bidder paid the price and kept the shredded painting. Banksy gave the painting a new name, Love is in the Bin, and three years later, it hit the auction block again. Despite the damage, Sotheby’s expected it to sell for somewhere between $5M to $8M.

When the bidding ended, the painting had fetched a staggering £18,582,000. The damaged painting sold for almost 18 times as much as the original, undamaged, Girl with Red Balloon.

It’s a good reminder. Sometimes, when things fall apart and seem terrible in the moment, it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Sometimes the setbacks we experience lead us to new opportunities that work out better than we could have imagined. It may just be great news when things don’t go as planned.

Don’t judge your story before you finish writing all the chapters. Focus instead on writing marvellous stories with the chapters of life that are still to come. Life is full of unexpected surprises, and even the devastating events may be amazing in the end.