When Shouldn’t You Give Someone A Second Chance?
Sometimes we so desperately cling to the potential in people that we completely ignore the realities that stand before us.
I continuously find myself in the same situation where something doesn’t quite work out but I give it another shot because “maybe it’ll be different this time!” It’s never different, yet I keep hitting that darn replay button, as if watching the same movie 18 times in a row is magically going to change the ending.
And I come back to the same logic and reasoning and recycle excuses throughout my mind because yes! Everyone deserves another chance! People change! Miracles happen! They really mean it this time!
And yes, everybody deserves a chance, but certainly not everyone deserves several. Sometimes we so desperately cling to the potential in people that we completely ignore the realities that stand before us. It’s not to say that we’re better than anyone else or that we even deserve better than what they can offer. It merely says that things are misaligned. The pieces don’t quite fit together. And that’s okay.
Could they fit together? If you really tried? Well, of course, but you’d be challenging the integrity of the puzzle as a whole while you manipulated its pieces. Sometimes you just have to sit back and accept reality. Accept fate. Because it’s staring you down everywhere you go, lurking behind each and every corner. The potential is there. It always will be. But the disappointment is there, too, and it’s reflected on your face like a constant beacon of what could be but isn’t.
Not everyone deserves a second chance. Sometimes the first chance is so perfectly laid out for them, so perfectly within grasp, and they fall and fail to grab a hold of it. And quite frankly, folks, that’s on them. You can only set up so many perfect opportunities before you begin to fail to recognize what it is you’re even looking for anymore.
Deeply contemplate that second chance. Hush those familiar voices in your head, urging onto you those familiar, overused excuses. Really think about it. Have things changed? Has that person changed? Is it really going to be different? Or is it simply your perspective that changed? Like it usually does? Changing to fit the mold you have ideally laid out in your head. The mold in which it all works out, in which it all finally comes together.
Our minds may change but others’ may not. Perhaps it’s time to compensate for your changing mind by also altering your actions. Change it up. Move on. Take a stride forward.
And who knows — maybe a second chance will come knocking on your door again someday. Honestly, I’d rather a second opportunity seek me out rather than search for it myself.
Because the most beautiful of beauty is found in spontaneity. In surprise. In circumstance. Let the spinning axis of the world do its job. Things will come to you, too, in time. 
