Have you ever felt trapped in a cycle of fate—like a script that keeps repeating, no matter how hard you try to break free? Maybe it’s not just coincidence but an invisible test to see if you truly understand the lesson that life (or a god) is trying to teach you.
Repeating Events – The Loop of Fate
💡 Signs that you might be stuck in a cycle of challenges:
✅ The same failures/situations keep recurring, even though you’ve tried to avoid them.
✅ You always get a sense of déjà vu when facing a certain problem.
✅ You know you need to change, but unconsciously, you keep falling into the same patterns.
🔥 The Work Cycle and Persistent Mistakes
Trang and I grew up together. She is a responsible employee who always strives for perfection. However, her perfectionism makes her spend too much time on small details. Many times, she misses deadlines and gets reprimanded by her superiors. Trang realizes this and tells herself to change, but a year later, she remains the same—trapped in excessive meticulousness and unable to break free.
💔 A Love Story That Repeats Like a Prewritten Script
Trang is also strong and independent, yet strangely, she is always drawn to emotionally unavailable men. Every time, the relationship begins beautifully with Tuan, only to end in heartbreak. She tells herself she won’t make the same mistake again. But a year later, she falls for Minh—who is just like her ex, and the story ends in tears once again.
📌 The Common Factor in Both Cases
- Recognizing the problem but not truly changing.
- Unable to break free from a repeating scenario, as if trapped in a loop.
- The truth is, they are unknowingly testing themselves.
At first glance, Trang’s story may seem like a series of unfortunate events, or, in an Asian cultural perspective, some sort of “bad luck.” But perhaps no supernatural force is at play here—it’s just her own mind setting a trap for itself.
The Psychological Explanation – A Self-Created Illusion?
From a psychological perspective, this is a classic example of confirmation bias. This effect was studied by Peter Wason (1960), who showed that people tend to seek and interpret information in a way that reinforces their existing beliefs.
In Trang’s case, she believes she is not good enough. So every time she makes a mistake, instead of viewing it as a learning opportunity, she focuses only on her failures, reinforcing her negative self-perception: See? I failed again. I really am incompetent.
In relationships, does she believe she is unworthy of love? This is a prime example of the self-fulfilling prophecy, a concept studied by Robert Merton (1948). When Trang believes she doesn’t deserve love, she unconsciously chooses relationships that end in pain, further reinforcing her negative belief—an endless loop that she pulls herself into.
How to Break Free from the Loop?
If you realize you are stuck in a cycle, the first step is to become aware of its root cause. But awareness alone is not enough—you need to take action:
🔹 From a psychological perspective: Change your mindset by recognizing and breaking confirmation bias. Try journaling or asking others for feedback to see that repeating failures are not “fate” but the result of behaviors that can be adjusted.
🔹 From a philosophical perspective: Buddhism emphasizes transforming perceptions. If you keep believing you are undeserving of love, you will continue attracting people who hurt you. Instead of trying to change your circumstances, change how you see yourself.
🔹 Through practical actions: If you keep making the same mistakes, create a system to prevent them. For example, Trang could set time limits for tasks instead of getting lost in perfectionism. In love, she could ask friends to help her recognize “red flags” in potential partners early on.
So, Is a God Really Testing Us?
🔹 Or is this just our way of personifying our own challenges—a way to find meaning in what we cannot yet understand?
Buddhism has a beautiful saying in the Dhammapada (Twin Verses Chapter):
“The mind is the forerunner of all actions, words, and thoughts. If the mind is tainted by greed, hatred, or ignorance, then actions and speech will lead to suffering, just as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that pulls the cart.”
In the end, perhaps this “god” is testing us by pushing us to view things objectively, to change ourselves, and to break free from our own loops—like leveling up in a game and standing victorious over our own struggles.
🔹 But ultimately, there is no god testing us other than ourselves. These “loops” are not the workings of a supernatural force but the consequences of our own thoughts and actions. And if we are the ones who create them, we can also be the ones to break free.
Have You Ever Been Stuck in Your Own Loop?
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