"It's all right, only different!" If the horse had run over him, he
might have said the same thing and found his opportunity to more
that was good and useful in life through steady patience on his bed.
The trouble is that we are not willing to call it _"all right"_
unless it is _the same,_--the same in this case meaning whatever may
be identical with our own personal ideas of what is "all right."
That expressive little bit of slang is full of humor and full of
common sense.

If, for instance, when we expect something and are disappointed, we
could at once yield out of our resistance and heartily exclaim, "it
is all right, only different," how much sooner we should discover
the good use in its being different, and how soon we should settle
into the sense of its being "all right!" When a circumstance that
has seemed to us _all wrong_ can be made, through our quiet way of
meeting it, to appear all right, only different, it very soon leads
to a wholesome content in the new state of affairs or to a change of
circumstances to which we can more readily and happily adjust
ourselves.

A strong sense of something's being "all right" means a strong sense
of willingness that it should be just as it is. With that clear
willingness in our hearts in general, we can adjust ourselves to
anything in particular,--even to very sudden and unexpected
changes. It is carrying along with us a background of powerful
non-resistance which we can bring to the front and use actively at a
moment's notice.

It seems odd to think of actively using non-resistance, and yet the
expression is not as contradictory as it would appear, for the