I've recently been thinking about this old German fairy tale called Hans im Gluck,

or Hans in Luck. It was published in an 1812 book of Grims fairy tales. In the story,

Hans has been working hard on a farm for seven years to make money for his mom who lives

in another village. Finally, Hans satisfies his boss with his work, and he's given

a gold nugget as payment. Hans sits off for home, bouncing along with the gold in his pocket.

But soon he grows tired of running. He spots a dude on a horse and trades the gold for

the powerful animal. Hans climbs a board and begins to ride. This works out for a while until

the horse proves to be a little wild and throws Hans off. Fortunately, a shepherd shows up right

about then and offers to give Hans a cow an exchange for his horse. The prospect of milk and

butter sounds good to Hans. He makes the deal. The cow, it turns out, is not so great at providing

milk. In fact, it sucks. No worries, though. Here comes a man with a goose. Wouldn't you know?

And yeah, Hans trades the cow for the goose, and then he gets sick of the goose. I mean,

who wouldn't really? And he trades the goose for a grindstone so he can make stuff for

money and buy food or whatever for his mom. The thing is, the grindstone is heavy, hard

to schlep. Carrying it on his journey gives Hans an awful thirst. So he stops at a river

for water, bends down to drink. Here, the grindstone slips from his grasp and drops into the

river, sinking down, down, and down, down to the silty bottom. Now, Hans has nothing. He

once had a small fortune in gold, and now Zippo. And the crazy part, this makes him happy.

This is Hans' luck. He is literally unburdened, spiritually free. Hans feels like he's got

it made. These days, I can't seem to get good old

Hans out of my mind. No matter how much I might want to. And you may think you know why

I've been obsessing over Hans, but I'm willing to wager, you don't.

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