What if you were drowning and someone threw you a rope? Would you be grateful for the second chance?
I wouldn’t, if rescue meant living the same meaningless life.
That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to make the latter half of my life more meaningful.
A second chance isn’t, however, something that you fritter away. You have to approach the novelty of it with kid gloves. It's new, but you've lived before. It's just a new page of the same book.
I guarantee you, though, that a second attempt at living can be a better experience than the first. Why?
It’s because you know you’ve survived the worst. The worst is over. There is nothing that you cannot overcome now.
This time around I have proofs of so many “facts” obtained by trial and error that I find myself better prepared to handle what life throws at me. Some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years of my “first life” are:
· I know that hard work is always repaid by rewards.
· Also, it’s a legitimate crime to not give your best to an employer (more on that next month).
· You have to treat every single person with the same compassion and respect that you would reserve for your loved ones. You never know who may be in need of it.
· People are carrying such large, hefty baggage that you’d be surprised to know the depth of another person’s pain.
· Everyone has been through something.
· Friends are the equivalent of gold and silver. Invest in them and treasure them. Good ones are hard to come by.
· People are lonely behind their eyes.
What would you do differently with a second chance?
I don’t know. For one I would make my life large. I would want more happiness in it and I would love to be more successful than I am.
If you’re facing another attempt at life I would recommend that you cut out all the bad habits that you had before. Make a conscious choice to do things differently.
Jesus is the God of second chances. And third chances and many more chances. While my own relationship with God has had its ups and downs, I don’t recommend living apart from Him. We came from God, and no one else. It follows that our lives must be rooted in Him.
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