As Nasruddin was walking home one day, he decided to take the long way through a rose garden instead of the usual road. The roses were all in bloom, and the scent was heavenly. But as he strolled the garden, he slipped in the mud and crashed into some rose bushes. He was badly bruised and bleeding from where the thorns had scratched him, plus he was covered with mud. Even so, he was not distressed. “If misfortune befell me in this rose garden,” he thought, “just imagine the disasters that awaited me on the open road.”
-from Another Way of Laughter, Sufi Stories collected by Idris Shaw