If it happens once, it will never happen again

I read this somewhere:

"If it happens once, it will never happen again. If it happens twice, it will surely happen a third time."

There have been times when someone told me, "How many times are you going to see this pass? It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" I did want to reply to that statement, though I didn't know how then.

I do now.

This may happen only once as long as I live, and similarly, there are hundreds of things that will happen only once during my lifetime. My 10th birthday will happen only once, but my birthdays will occur dozens of times, and if you bless me, at least a hundred times. My wedding may happen only once, but I am going to visit fifty other wedding ceremonies in my life, though all of those who are getting married (I hope) will be doing so only once in their lives.

My school admissions, my college years, my achievements, my failures and successes, my jobs and new relations, parties and miracles, weird news on TV and in the papers — these that you call once-in-a-lifetime events — are so many and innumerable that I no longer think they are unique. Not enjoying some of them, not participating in a few of them, they might cause a little pain, but I consciously do so in full awareness of the consequences: I am courageous enough to handle them.

"If it happens once in my life, it will happen a thousand times in the same life."