For the Love of Mulligans

Recently, my fiancé and I applied for our marriage license. Both of us have been married once before so, per the requirements of the application, we had to bring our divorce decrees as proof that our first marriages had, in fact, been dissolved. Perfunctory as it was, answering the question “how many times have you been married?” and providing the legal paperwork to prove it gave me pause to think about second chances and, more specifically, why some things can be better the second time around. Sure, the statistic for a successful second, third, fourth (and so on) marriage is less than stellar. So, though, is the statistic on banging your head on the same wall over and over thinking eventually it won’t hurt. We’ve all been guilty of insanity in the form of repeating the same mistakes expecting a different outcome. It’s easy to do. What’s harder to do is understand why we engage in default patterns such as deluding ourselves out of our discomfort (otherwise known as living in fantasy); telling ourselves “it’s not that big of a deal” when it is; getting defensive instead of reflective; and saying we “should” do this instead of that because it’s the right thing according to…family, friends, next door neighbors, God, Buddha…whom exactly? My point in all of this is to say that failure in relationships or learning a new skill does not pre-determine failure in those same arenas the next time around. Our bad habits do. To be clear, bad habits include blatant acts like not taking care of yourself, being abusive, and acting out of Ego as well as more covert offenders like passivity, secrecy, and naïveté. You – not your family, friends, next door neighbors, God, or Buddha - are responsible for practicing better, healthier habits. You can make the choice to continue forcing square pegs in round holes or you can choose to get curious about your incessant need to try and make square pegs something they can’t be. There’s a first time for everything and, if we’re fortunate enough, a second time to get it right – not perfect, but more aligned with who we are and what we have the capacity to give and receive.“Regrets begin the moment we'recomfortable with settling”(Andrena Sawyer)If you had a second chance to do or say something different, what would it be?Now, what’s holding you back?