Head or Tail

You toss a coin. You get a tail. you toss the coin again. What are you likely to get? Another  tail? Perhaps. But a head appears more likely primarily because you got a tail already. Let us say you got a tail for the second time. Now you toss the coin for the third time. What will you expect? A head appears even more likely now, doesn't it?. Let us say, you got the tail  for the third time too. Now, if you toss the coin for the fourth time, you will be almost sure that it will be a head.

I am not going to dwell on the law of averages or on the law of probability. I am only bringing in this as an analogy to drive home a point.

Sometimes, in life, we are confronted by some problems. We are naturally upset. Sometimes, we solve the problems and carry on with our life. But sometimes, we feel helpless, unable to know what to do. We feel frustrated and become desperate, losing all hope. Is this thinking rational? Logically, when something goes wrong, we should expect something good to follow but we don't. We only fear the worst. And if  problems come in succession, we feel that we have run out of our luck. We expect even worse things to happen. But, logically, if problems come in succession, the likelihood of a good thing happening should be stronger.

The Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar says, "When struck by a misfortune, cheer up because, what will follow will be something different (pleasant). When tail keeps coming up in successive throws of a coin, you are becoming closer to getting a head! So, cheer up!