Second chances are such an elusive thing nowadays. People will tell you to not give someone a second chance, because fool me twice, shame on me. I was always cautioned when giving an ex a second chance at my heart or when allowing a back-stabbing friend close to me again. “No one changes,” they would tell me. “Second chances don’t matter. They’ll only use you again.” Sometimes this is true, but sometimes people surprise you.
Looking back on my life, there are plenty of times I wish I hadn’t given someone a second chance. I've been double-crossed and hurt again, but there are also times where I wasn’t burned by someone asking me to allow them back into my life. Out of this second chance, I gained back one of my best friends, whom I continue to grow closer to each day.
If you google “giving second chances” and click on images, you find plenty of pictures that tell you to not give people another chance because people never change or that only strong people know when to walk away. I disagree with both of these points. I believe it takes more strength to go out and risk getting hurt again by someone who might’ve hurt you before. I also believe that people can change because big life changes can happen to people and change the way they look at everything. Sometimes people are a totally new person because of new experiences.
I’m not exactly sure when second chances became such a rare thing. I’m not sure when the measure of our strength was determined by our ability to resist giving someone another chance at being in our lives. I’m most definitely not sure when we were able to determine someone’s worthiness of being able to share our lives because of a human mistake. We shouldn’t prevent someone a second chance because we deem them unworthy or incapable of change. We are told to never let someone double-cross us. Well, I say second chances are a must. Third and fourth chances, not so much. How many times have you ever told yourself that if you had the chance, you would do something differently? A lot of the time, and that’s how others feel, too. We are human: We make mistakes and we screw up, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve a chance to make it right.
Don’t let a Google image tell you that your strength is determined by your capability to resist showing forgiveness, or that people won’t change. Are you the same person you were five years ago? I know for a fact, I am not. I like to think that that’s because of second chances and mistakes.
Let’s learn to forgive and allow others back into our lives. To me, that proves your strength more than not forgiving ever will.
“I am tired of people saying that poor character is the only reason people do wrong things. Actually, circumstances cause people to act a certain way. It's from those circumstances that a person's attitude is affected followed by weakening of character. Not the reverse. If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others and judging their lives as either black or white, good or bad. We all live our lives in shades of gray.”
― Shannon L. Alder
