The Garden: Give yourself a second chance

It was a few years ago when I stumbled upon the phrase “revisit your commitment” it was part of a whole talk Oprah Winfrey gave on her show and I cannot begin to tell you how this liberated me. For me it said you can change your mind or rather you are allowed to have a change of heart and this has in a great way influenced my life choices and most importantly to not feel guilty or be apologetic about giving myself another chance.

After learning new things, developing and growing as a person you really may go through a mind shift -meaning the things you once believed that fuelled your life choices may have been influenced thus changing the way you see things presently-and by all means we should be allowed to make the necessary adjustments. A popular quote says “Just because you did something wrong in the past doesn’t mean you can’t advocate against it now, it doesn’t make you a hypocrite. You grew! Don’t let people use your past to invalidate your current mind-set. “Give yourself a second chance!

It is said that the most creative art you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself and I happen to agree. For the past six months I have been in my shell undertaking this creative art, let me also highlight the fact that it wasn’t my first time and so this time it was more of a recreating process. I found myself having to reflect, to then reforming. Reforming because during the reflection some things came to the surface, most pressing was that some changes were necessary and so I had to revisit my commitment on some decisions. Some things had to be let go, some adjusted and some new things incorporated all part of the beautiful process of recreating myself. I have recreated myself in the most profound ways. I have given myself a second chance. How about you? What are you waiting for? Are you going to keep moving in the wrong direction even after you have realised yourself just because of a decision you made some years or months or even days ago? How much longer will you continue to condemn yourself over that thing that happened in your past?  Okay so you made some errors, you made poor choices-perhaps you didn’t know any better or for some reason you’ve had a change of heart won’t you forgive yourself and move on?

But Lerato I’m old it’s a little too late much damage has been done. Listen! There’s no better time than now. It is never too late to start over, it is never too late to give yourself a second chance. Those excuses you hear in your mind are just your soul’s enemies discouraging you from morphing into a better you. Many have died without experiencing reconciliation or restoration, the mere fact that you’re still alive today should indicate that there is hope. As each day is a gift of life, cherish the opportunity to start a new, with fresh mercies and an opportunity to make altering life choices favourable towards you. Often times we can be so hard on ourselves, we are quick to forgive others when they offend us, we can even repeatedly welcome back a person who just keeps apologising to us with no repentance and yet we find it such a difficult task to forgive ourselves. We give so many people not just second but even third fourth some countless chances and yet we deprive ourselves of just a second chance. We deny ourselves yet another option to recreate ourselves, to make amends where we have short-changed ourselves, where we have deceived ourselves, where we’ve wronged ourselves.

You can make amends whether in your field of study, career path, or social life. You can have a change of heart with your body goals or you may even cut your logs after growing them for many years. You may suddenly decide to have children after all even if you once thought you’d never want any of it. You can relocate, go to a new country or state and build a new life there. You may revisit your commitment; you may give yourself a second chance.

You can rise up from anything, nothing is permanent. You can completely recreate yourself! You’re not stuck, you have choices. You can think new thoughts, you can learn something new. You can create new habits. All that matters is that you decide today and never look back.