There is an Arabic Proverb narrated in the Paulo Coelho's novel The Alchemist
"Everything that happens once can never happen twice. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time."
In the first glance, the proverb appears to be quite illogical but when we think of it deeply we can give multiple interpretations to it. You may not believe it but my academic life is full of instances that let me believe this proverb whole heartedly.
When I was in class 8, I worked really hard to achieve the first position in the class. I practised and learned everything with utmost attention. There was a sum in my maths course that was a bit confusing and a kind of mistake was quite likely to happen in it. I practiced that question as much as I had learnt it by heart. The question appeared in my term paper. I attempted it carefully so that I might not make that mistake. I was so confident that it was correct. When the result was announced I stood 4th though I had secured 98.6% marks. I was 5 marks away from first position. I checked my paper thoroughly where I lost my marks. Alas! It was in mathematics paper. The question that I had prepared and attempted so carefully was attempted wrong. How I made the mistake I have no idea because I carefully rechecked it when I had attempted it.
After this incident, it became a repetitive part of my life. Whatever question I learned the best would slip of my mind while sitting in examination hall.
I hardly used the already prepared notes of anything. Instead, I used to prepare my own notes. Answers to some of the topics were so appreciated by my teachers. When I was in class 9, there was one such topic. Not only the notes that I prepared for it were well-written but also I had learnt it by heart. It was so well learned that I could write it during sleep. When I went to give the board exam, the question appeared in the examination paper. I started writing it confidently, but.........
I was lost. It felt like my memory of that question was erased. I tried hard to remember it but of no use. I couldn’t remind till the end and so I had to leave it incomplete.
Another similar incident happened when I was in class 11. It was not a very good year with regard to my academics, yet I prepared my own notes. When the paper was taken in college I secured 45 marks out of 100 in physics paper. It was quite bad result; however, there was an answer in it that was very much appreciated by my teacher. While I got overall quite low marks but my teacher gave me exclusive remarks on that particular answer. It was the answer that I had learned and practiced really well. Aaaaaaaah! As you would have got by now, I had a history of forgetting what I had learnt the best. The question appeared in the board exams. I started writing it and..... The bulb of my mind was put off .
Since then, I understood when something is destined to happen it would happen any way. Whenever, I would prepare a question really well and be confident about it, I would not be able to produce it in the exam perfectly.
There is something that I have understood from the proverb and the happenings. If something happens for once only, it can be ignored. Something happened twice is predictive of a pattern in our lives. It may help us developing the understanding of If-Then relationship of occurrences. In this way we can take the preventive actions.
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