Second Chances

when I leave my house in the morning I have to take a left hand turn onto a busy road. some mornings I fly on out and I'm downtown in seconds. some mornings I wait for seemingly endless lines of traffic coming from both directions to dissipate before I can cross the street and head on down to the rotary. when waiting like that, I can see the traffic down to the right side all lined up just waiting to whiz by me. Then I look to the left to see cars zooming up; neither side really giving me a chance to poke my nose out there and go for it. The anticipation of really wanting to get out there starts to build. Someone pulls up behind me and is waiting with blinker on. somehow the pressure starts to build. what I hate is when there is just a little gap in traffic- you think you might be able to make, you start to accelerate and the you realize that the dump truck is just going too fast, you slam on the breaks and you jerk to a stop. your head kind of bobs and you hope that the car behind you doesn't plow into you. that's when I always think "I missed my chance".

but the thing is I am in the car- traffic is fluid and eventually I will be able to push my way out. I may have gotten a false start but I certainly didn't miss my only chance. what silly logic would that be? this got me thinking, how many times in life do we get a false start, but instead of trying again we just figure that we failed and walk away. instead of seeing our first intention as a false start, and call "Flag on the Play", we see a big red sign that blinks FAILURE in red. we hang our heads and walk away. what's sadder is there are so many times when we see that as a reason not to try again- ever.

I have certainly watched people struggle with this. whether it be with love, addiction, business- it affects many people. getting back on the saddle is just not that easy when a matter of the heart is involved-or a serious passion. Am I guilty of this? yes- I suppose I am- as evidenced by my logic while in the car. I find myself doing this in the kitchen as well. If a recipe doesn't come out right I write it off. Rarely do I give it another go. and recently I was thinking that I did the same with grad school. I made a decision not to complete the program I was in- there were so many reason- the stress, working full time, the cost- and so I gave it up. I never officially withdrew the right way. I just sort of walked away; and while I haven't regretted the decision to stop going to school I still feel like a failure. I think that feeling is prohibiting me from deciding to go back and which direction to point my future in. so what is the question here to consider? how do I grant myself a second chance?