Welcome to How to Keep Writing Wednesdays, where you'll find a boost of encouragement to help you keep the words flowing.
Do-Overs
Ah, who wouldn’t love a do-over, a chance to start again from scratch?
You could go back one hour, one day, one year, a lifetime.
Do-overs are not to be confused with second chances, which implies that while you’re getting a second go (at a business assignment, a school assignment, marriage), no one’s forgotten what happened the first time around. There are times in your life when you are grateful for a second chance but they’re not do-overs. With second chances, you carry the memory of the first attempt with you into the second.
A true do-over, however, is a reset. We wish for do-overs when we say something we wish we hadn’t, when we embarrass ourselves, when we make a decision we regret seconds (or years) later. We fantasize that pressing the reset button will erase our actions.
If books and movies have taught us anything, it’s that do-overs never work. We think they will—we hope desperately they will—we may even be convinced that the only way for things to be set right again is for a full-on do-over. It can get downright apocalyptic.
If something happened that is making you wish for a do-over, consider the possibility that it occurred in service of a specific purpose. Wisdom. Clarity. Humility. Compassion. A deeper knowing of what you want (and don’t want), of who you want to be (and don’t want to be). If the do-over leads you to ask “How do I move on from here?” or “What do I do next?” it hasn’t been in vain. You are aware—perhaps painfully so—about how it has changed you.
Writers write to explore. We pay attention to details, we notice the nuances. Is that to say we don’t wish for do-overs? Of course not. Do-overs have a seductive quality—it’s a fast and easy way out. But with writing—and life—there is no fast and easy way out. We go through experiences because they help clarify who we are, so we can see who we are. Moments that make us want a do-over are moments that have the greatest capacity to teach us what we need to know.