In computer programming there is the term "iterate":
iteration (noun): the process of doing something again and again, usually to improve it.
Weekly food shopping has iterations. Once Mum stayed at home and I went to the fruit market with Dad. We forgot to bring Mum's shopping list so we weren't sure what to buy. Then I remembered the Buddha's Instructions to Rahula, that at least I could resolve not to forget the shopping list the next week. And we only forgot the peaches.
The "next week" when I was sure to remember the shopping list, having been willing to learn from my mistake of forgetting it the previous week, was an example of a "second chance in life".
"How do you keep patience going? How do you keep persistence going? By having a good sense of humor about what’s happening to you in the path and having an infinite good humor that can keep you going. This is the attitude that allows you to say, “Whoops, another mistake! – Well, try again! Another mistake? Try again!” It’s that ability to step back from yourself a bit to see what you’re doing and not to be so in to a particular state of mind or in to a particular identity that you can’t let it go." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Infinite Good Humor"
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