How to Beat a No-Win Situation

"Despite the evidence of a long history of loyalty to the company, hard won achievements, and consistent performance beyond our high expectations, we are denying your request for promotion." 

 The cold response didn’t bother me. I knew this was coming. What really stung was how it happened. She has 6 months experience. I spent the last 4 of them correcting all of her mistakes. She asks me questions that only a rookie would ask. I am happy to answer them, since she works hard and wants to succeed.  

That promotion was supposed to go to someone with 10 years experience, and at least 5 of them working in the company, at least in the industry.  

The CEO thinks she's cute. I saw it in his body language. I saw how she used it to her advantage, making him think that his grey hair was somehow sporty.  

The meeting was a no-win situation. I walked into it knowing that the facts didn't matter. What was best for everyone didn't matter. What was right didn't matter. When the glaringly obvious became official fact, I left the office very upset.  

Then I said thank You to Hashem.  

The Blessing of Blind Justice 

There have been plenty of times in my life where the facts dictated that something go my way, and for no reason whatsoever, it didn’t. People make the most irrational and illogical decisions and I get the short end of the stick.  

Have you ever been in a situation where you know you weren't supposed to lose, but you came into it feeling that you weren't going to win? 

That's the blessing of injustice. It's a blessing because we know that this came from Hashem. It couldn't have come from man, because man isn't that irrational to do something that makes no sense whatsoever.  

No sense whatsoever to us, at least.  

The blessing is in knowing that such situations exist. Hashem can place us in any situation where there is no reasonable way out. He can put us on top of a bottomless pit and watch the natural forces of gravity do its work.  

Then, for some reason completely unknown to us, it ends in our favor. Defying all common sense, we prevail. If a situation arises where it is impossible to fail, and we do, then of course, a situation can arise which is impossible to overcome – and yet, we do.  

Hashem teaches us that logic is one of the tools in His arsenal, but not the only one. He can do whatever He wants in this world and it is up to us to trust in Him, and not even our own heads. 

A can’t–lose situation that fails is the ultimate promise from Hashem that there will be plenty of no-win pitfalls that He will rescue us from.  

To Say Thank You 

Rabbi Arush teaches us to say thank You to Hashem for everything that goes wrong in our life. It’s like adding sugar to black coffee. Left alone, black coffee is bitter tasting. It’s amazing how adding a substance that makes up less than 1% of the drink turns it from bitter to sweet.  

I have learned that when you say thank You to Hashem for a tribulation while you are going through it, something in your mind triggers you to see the good in this trial. It can be something that has already happened, like saying thank You to Hashem in the middle of a lightning storm. It can be something that will come out of this, like a desire to get started on my side business or re-sharpen my skills. 

It can be something that will happen far in the future, that we will never connect to what just happened, but will have saved our life, our eternity, because Hashem gave us a miracle by taking our can’t miss moment and putting it in a no-win situation.