"Every adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage". Napoleon Hill said this in his classic book, "Think and Grow Rich".

Over the years I have misquoted this as "Every adversity carries with it the seed of equivalent benefit". Regardless of how you say it the message is the same, if you look for good in adversity you will find it.

This has been one of my favorite sayings over the years and it rings true in my life. Each time adversity has overtaken me, things got better. An example is, when I lost my job I started my own business. When business got bad I discovered selling on eBay. I then made my full time living on eBay.

Just when my eBay business really got going my rental landlord almost doubled my rent. That was difficult to take.  My wife and I looked at the situation and asked ourselves, "where would we really like to live". We lived in a hot area where temperatures got up over 100 degrees in the summer. We decided we'd like to live at the beach. We moved to within a mile of the Pacific Ocean. Eventually we moved within five houses of the beach. Each morning was started with a walk on the beach.

Even the death of my mother contained a seed of equivalent benefit. She was 92 when she died, so it was her time. She left me a small inheritance which solved a number of my financial problems at the time. Although I was sad to lose my mother, her final gift to me improved my life.

If you stop and look at every adversity, carefully analyze it, and look for what might be good in it you may be surprised. It could be that the big problem you had is now an opportunity.

If you make a habit of looking for the good in life there's a good chance she'll find it. I guess another way of saying this is, "Every cloud has a silver lining".