Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don’t look back,
The future never happens…
(From “Dawn Revisited” by Rita Dove, On the Bus with Rosa Parks,)
A few years ago, I stumbled across a photograph in an advertisement for a Canadian insurance company. A young man, wearily hoping for someone to offer him a ride, stands by the side of the road, his hair disheveled, wearing a worn sheepskin jacket, and holding a sign that reads “If I had a second chance, I’d be home by now.
”
We’d all like a second chance from time to time—a “do-over,” the opportunity to make a different choice than before, a clean page to begin a new life chapter. Maybe that’s why we routinely promise ourselves we’ll do better: eat more fruits and vegetables, shed those extra ten pounds gained over the holidays, mend fences with an estranged family member, finish that novel we put aside months ago, walk at least thirty minutes a day, or finally get around to painting the hallway, grown weary looking with the years. Our self-improvement plans are constant promises we make to ourselves, some successful, others not, but most of us hope for a chance to improve our lives, one way or another.
Resolved: this year
I’m going to break my losing streak,
I’m going to stay alert, reach out,
speak when not spoken to,
read the minds of people in the streets.
I’m going to practice every day,
stay in training, and be moderate
in all things…
(From: “New Year’s Resolution,” by Philip Appleman, New and Selected Poems, 1996)
Making good on our intentions, deciding what’s most important to tackle, requires not only action, but reflection, understanding which habits of our lives no longer serve us well, which we want to discard; which we want to continue. “Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards,” Danish philosopher and theologian, Søren Kierkegaard advised.
The 2009 award-winning film, The Things We Carry, tells the story of two sisters, estranged from each other by their mother’s addiction, and their journey through the San Fernando Valley to find a package left for them by their deceased mother. As they travel together, old sibling wounds are exposed and recounted, but gradually, they find peace with one another. “The key to moving forward,” the film’s tagline reads, “lies in the past.”
In Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 nonfiction bestseller, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Louie Zamperini, an Olympian track star who became an Army Air Corps bombardier in 1941, crashes into the Pacific and survives for 47 days on a life raft before he’s taken captive by the Japanese. Zamperini’s story is not only about survival and heroism, it’s about redemption, a second chance to put the brutal wounds of his past behind him.
If you don’t look back, the future never happens. Whatever hardships lie in our past, we must find our own ways of coming to terms with them. Everyone carries burdens in their lives, virtual knapsacks filled with old ways of being and believing, wounds or grievances, lingering pain or anger, even fear. Writing can help. Exposing our deepest feelings, reflecting on the past, gaining new insights, opening us to “seeing” the world and living differently. A second chance is an opportunity to understand and discard those things that no longer serve us, weigh us down, or interfere with our healing. It’s an opportunity to “wake up,” be fully present to the gifts of life offered to us daily.
Like you, I have to remind myself of this from time to time, as I suspect we all do when life weighs us down. It’s one of the main reasons I wake early each morning to walk, repeating the words of Ticht Nhat Hahn, Vietnamese Zen Master and poet, as I greet the dawn, his words first introduced to me The Spirited Walker guru, Carolyn Scott-Kortge. Hahn’s words help me remember that each day is my second chance—or third or fourth—to live the life I want.
Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.
Imagine that you wake up with a second chance. What would you do differently, given the opportunity? Why not begin your second chance today?
I love this post. We can look at each day as a second chance to “get it right.”
We have a second chance to make this day better than yesterday. We have another opportunity to forgive and forget harsh words, mean spirited deeds, or just smile at a stranger. thank you.
Thank you for your comment, Glenda.
Sharon