I was never one to believe in second chances; except maybe for those who deserve it, like animals who were formally abused finding a good home or someone who made a few bad choices being able to turn their life around. Yet, more often than not, I felt that there were no second chances in life, and sometimes we do not deserve second chances. There isn’t a second chance (or at least there shouldn’t be) when you hurt someone—for example, cheaters do not deserve a second chance ever. And there are certain mistakes you that you just can’t come back from; there are no second chances when you play with the law or when you screw up a “once in a lifetime opportunity”. I used to think that second chances were very arbitrary, and I chose to live like there were no second chances, because it is safer to assume that you have one shot to make everything work. Second chances are safety nets, and if there is anything I’ve learned from my years on this earth, it’s that there are rarely safety nets and even when they do exist, they are often very flimsy.

However, I think this view may have been a bit too cynical; life does offer second chances every now and then, and many times we can even create second chances for ourselves. For example, most of us have had a “first love” by now, and when that relationship ended, I’m sure most of us were absolutely devastated and left reeling in the wake of a misery we thought would end us. Yet we, as humans, tend to overestimate the effects of a situation on our future selves. We care too much about emotion in the moment, and we give our psychological immune systems little credit when it comes to handling life’s problems. We had or will have a first love, and we have or will have a second, a third, a fourth…however many it takes until we are happy. We never thought this would occur in the moment, but if we take a look at how far we have come from point A to point B, I’m sure we would all be applauding each successive person who taught us that love still exists, even after we never thought it could again. We can create second chances for ourselves by allowing ourselves to move on and learn from our mistakes, because life is full of wrong turns and missed exits and traffic accidents. We think it is the end of the world, but it is not. I have thought the world was ending too many times to count, yet every morning I have woken up and been forced to face the tomorrow I dreaded. The world keeps spinning no matter how hard we fall, and all we can do is pick ourselves up and keep going.

If you fail a class, take it again and try harder. If you are miserable, change your surroundings. If you need a break, take a break. Nothing is as bad as it seems in the long run, and you have made it this far despite all obstacles. In fact, the one thing you have done more successfully than anything else is stay alive, so give yourself a pat on the back and remember that there were many times you thought you had failed or that this was the end, and yet somehow you are still here. We are simply humans living in an uncomfortable and complex world that we created, and we have all the chances in the world should we choose to take them. It is a privilege to get to make mistakes and grow from your past self, and it is a privilege to have the opportunity to make second chances for yourself. The world may not have so many security blankets or safety nets, but you never know until you take the plunge, so don’t be afraid to dive in.