We have lots of ways to describe the good that can sometimes come from bad.

A blessing in disguise, a silver lining.

But what if the bad that led to the good was truly awful?

You could see that his face was starting to balloon to a size where I realized how bad

it was that he had gotten hurt.

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantan.

There's really just one way to look at a given event.

A slight change in outcome can change the way we see and interpret an experience.

This week we have the story of three people who discover that an event the initially

viewed as terrible might in fact have been just the opposite.

Not awful, but a stroke of unimaginable good luck.

Framing and reframing.

This week on Hidden Brain.

December 21 is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.

It's also the day our story begins.

Three people have finished work, each is heading to a metro train station in Washington,

DC.

It was just before rush hour I was planning to meet my wife who works a few stations ahead

of me.

This is Colin Dale, he's at the center of our story.

Colin is 42, happily married, he's got two teenage kids and a successful job as a technology

consultant.

...