By Cari Skrdla

The Law of Polarity says that everything has an opposite. If there’s a top, there’s a bottom. If there’s an outside, there’s an inside. If there’s a downside, there’s an upside. Good and bad, right and wrong, hot and cold, night and day—everything has a counterpart.

Every Bad Has Something Good in It

One of the most powerful habits you can build is to use this law to your advantage. It’s so easy to fixate on what’s wrong, which only keeps us stuck in negative thinking. But every situation we label as “bad” has something good inside it—we just have to look for it. And when we focus our attention on that good, it lifts our energy and draws more good to us.

When life gets hard, try asking:

• What’s the best part of this situation?

• What can I learn from what I’m going through?

• How can I turn this into something positive?

Questions like these train your mind to look for opportunities—even when things feel impossible. Instead of sinking into discouragement, they help you respond with faith and action.

Consider These Examples

• Steve Jobs was fired from Apple—the company he started—in his 30s. Rather than spiraling, he launched NeXT and Pixar. Apple eventually acquired NeXT and brought him back as CEO. The rest is history: iPod, iPhone, iPad. Would any of those exist if he’d never been fired?

• In 1919, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because his editor claimed he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” That same setback became the push he needed to start fresh. He went on to create beloved characters, franchises, and theme parks that still carry his name.

• J.K. Rowling lost her job at Amnesty International and used her severance check to chase her dream of becoming a writer. During that “down” time, she created Harry Potter, the most successful book series of all time. Would it exist if she hadn’t been fired? Probably not.

Each of these people experienced what looked like a failure. But instead of settling for something smaller, they used their setback as a springboard into something greater. That’s the Law of Polarity in motion.

Appearances Can Be Deceptive

That’s the thing—what looks “bad” at first might just be a blessing in disguise. I’ve come to believe that difficult things happen to push us out of our comfort zones and into new paths. We get stuck in routines, and sometimes the only way we’ll change direction is through what feels like a “pattern interrupt.”

Napoleon Hill said,

“Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit.”

You Decide If It’s Good or Bad

Most situations aren’t inherently good or bad—they just are. How we interpret them is up to us. If something seems overwhelmingly negative, try shifting your perspective. Look through the lens of potential and opportunity.

And remember—without the hard times, the good times wouldn’t feel as sweet. Some of the most successful people had very hard beginnings. But those hard times became the fuel that drove them to change their circumstances. They took all that pain, boxed it up, and used it to build something better.

Failure Can Be a Good Thing

Think of it this way: Failure is the opposite of success—but we usually can’t succeed without it. No one learns to walk without falling. Failure is part of the journey. You fail forward, step by step, until success is eventually the result.

Thomas Edison is the perfect example. He failed 10,000 times while trying to create the light bulb. But his mindset never matched his results. He famously said,

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Each failure brought him one step closer to what did work.

In summary: Start looking for the good inside every “bad.” Negative situations often carry the raw materials for positive change. And your attitude—how you choose to see and respond—is the key that unlocks the good.

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