Just some thoughts

To be able to grasp what I am trying to deliver in this blog post, you guys need to acquire some knowledge in biology. Precisely, knowledge about the mechanism of protein synthesis in our body.

Just a warning in advance - You may be bored by the following.

I am going from protein to amino acids in descending order. Protein is made up of one or more polypeptides. A polypeptide is in turn made up by many amino acids linked together by peptide bonds. And the information used to synthesis proteins is coded in the DNA molecules. One gene will code for one polypeptide, as stated by the 'one-gene-one-polypeptide' theory.

Different combinations of amino acids result in different polypeptides. Thus, the position of each amino acids in the polypeptide chain is of utmost importance to ensure that a protein molecule can carry out its function.

Then, we proceed to the DNA part. The codes for the polypeptide are organised in triplet code form in the DNA. Each triplet code will be copied into a messenger (with the role of a postman), mRNA to be translated into amino acids. Once the wrong amino acid is placed on the polypeptide chain, the protein is not functional. In other words, if the codes are copied wrongly into the mRNA, the resulting protein would not be functional because it is the codes in the mRNA that code for the amino acids.

Now, you know the triplet codes (called codons) in the mRNA code for one amino acid. For instance, the code AUG codes for amino acid methionine. AGU codes for serine. In total, we have 20 amino acids. And we also have four bases that form all those codes. Using permutation, there are (4*4*4=64) probabilities of triplet codes that can be formed. 64 triplet codes code for 20 amino acids. How come?

Here comes the moral of the story, God has deliberately allowed several triplet codes to code for the same amino acid. The same amino acid can be coded in a few different codes. This reduces the incidence of mistakes that the enzyme makes during the copying process from DNA to mRNA. For your information, it's enzymes that catalyse the copying process.

This is what my teacher said - even enzyme would make mistakes in spite of their high specificity. Would we never ever make mistakes in lives?

We are human. We are not God. God does not make mistakes. But we absolutely make mistakes at times, even enzymes are not exceptional.

Our mistake might cost us deep sorrow. Our mistake might cost us great change in our life. Our mistake might cost us tremendous problems.

We are definitely unable to turn back time to undo the mistakes we did. More often than not, when we have committed a mistake, we would say, "How I wish I have the ability to undo mistakes." We would regret the mistakes we did. We would keep throwing in hundreds and hundreds of words of apology to the person concerned.

But the harsh reality is, we can't undo the thing we did.

Instead of regretting and crying over our mistakes, why not we take a deep breath, reorganise our tangled thought and untie the knot in our heart to accept the reality and admit our mistakes? I have read a book. The author teaches the us to shoulder 100% responsibility for our lives and our mistakes.

It doesn't matter to have done a mistake. But it does matter not to admit our mistakes.

We learn from mistakes. This is parts of the growing process. Do not cry over spilt milks. Learn your lessons then and do something to mend the broken heart.

Keep going!

p/s: What matters is not being perfect and never committing mistakes. We can never reach perfectionism. Learn form mistakes. That's what counts.