Saw a reference to Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’ this morning, which was funny because just yesterday I was explaining to someone it’s where one of my key prioritizing heuristics comes from.
There’s a proverb in the book that goes something like “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”
Of course, logically this makes no sense—everything that happened twice is a thing that also happened once.
But I take it to mean “Once something goes wrong twice, it’s time to pay attention.” Once could be a fluke. Twice means there’s something going on. The second time it happens is where the phase change from noise to signal begins.
Borris
in reply to Rodney Edgar • • •