A colleague of mine narrated an interesting incident, which happened when she was on vacation in another country. She went on a long drive with her family and entered a restaurant to have lunch. After all the family members had gone through the menu card they realised that did not like the food listed in the menu.  Further, they did not like the smell of the place.  They politely got up and told the butlers that they had changed their plans and hence wanted to move on.  Actually, they left the place in a hurry since they did not like the food nor the smell of the place.  They told themselves that will never ever come to this place again.

After driving for about 50 miles they realised that one of them had forgotten her handbag in the same restaurant.  So, they turned back and decided to drive back.  They hardly remembered the name of the restaurant.  But with the help of the highway police, they could trace their way back.  When they reached,  they were promptly handed back their forgotten handbag.  But, they felt embarrassed by the turn of events and being touched by their grace decided to have lunch in the same restaurant.

When she returned from her vacation and narrated this incident, I was recalling how many times I have felt the same way – ” never again “.  But, after listening to this incident I realised that may be the decision should be to say -“Never say never again …”.  The reason is that we feel never again at the spur of the moment on many occasions and with no logic or reason.  Sooner than later we realize that our decision was irrational or sometimes even unreasonable.

Let us reflect on a few real life incidents.  We climb a hill top and after a arduous and tiring trek up we realize that this is not for us. This will be our last trek and we will never do it again.  But as soon as we reach the peak and admire the beauty of nature around us we realize that the efforts were worth it.  We may decide to try one more time since the results were much more rewarding than the efforts put in.

We may decide never to visit a shop again just because an employee in a shop did not behave well with us.  It may be a one off incident and if we brood over the incident, we may have provoked the emotions of the employee and hence his outburst may have been more due to our own behaviour than his.  So, we may end up going to the same shop again since the benefit of shopping there is that everything is available and it is near your home.

We may travel to a country and may face a lot of embarassment from the day of arrival.  It may be immigration issues at the  airport and then misplacing your baggage and the final nail in the coffin may be your hotel reservation is not confirmed although u had a confirmed voucher.  All this may make us decide never to visit this country again.  But, we never know that destiny may take us to the same country for our first job from our campus or on a transfer from our organisation and we may really end up doing well in our career.

So, the lessons learnt is – “Never say never again…  “.  Only time and reflection may make us wiser.  It may be worthwhile to reflect and take time to decide – ” Why never again ?” 

Have you been through such incidents in your life ?

S Ramesh Shankar