The last time the last TWO times I ordered my breakfast from Bagelmen's, I was let down spectacularly. Twice I ordered poppy bagels and got bagels barely sprinkled with poppy seed. BARELY. Further injury was also added to insult, as once they exchanged my regular coke for light - I don't do light - and the second time they've got me the smallest bagel available on the planet. But I love bagels, so I wasn't going to take on any more of this "out-bageling" thing and decided to give them a second chance (or might it be a third?). So I ordered my bagel and SPECIFICALLY asked for the bagel with the MOST POPPY SEEDS on it. The reply? The bagels are already made, they can't add more poppy seeds to it. Yeah, I don't exactly know were "choose the one with the most poppy seeds on it and send it my way" for "make one specially for me, packed to the brim with poppy seeds and embroid on it my family crest".
Sometimes we are like that with other things, and by doing so, by hoping against all hope, we might be closing the door to new, better chances. We give a second, third, fourth and n-th chance to a family member in hopes for them to just get their act together and stop depending on us or getting to our nerves. Also with significant others, we shower chances upon them hoping that the miracle will come sometime their way and we all be able to live happy, fulfilled lives. This happens also at work or with our studies, when teachers keep giving chances to students while wishing they won't stay eternally incompetent, or when you keep giving chances to coworkers to stop leeching on you, pushing your way their work, or even bosses, as you give them a chance over and over hoping that one day they'll realize you are not a slave, but a professional capable of thinking, and not only good to run their errands and print out their notes.
The question here begins to be: who are we giving the chance to? Are we really giving the chance to someone or something that simply won't change, or are we giving ourselves a chance to believe, a chance to live in the clouds instead of the Earth? Chances can be dangerous, as we get so focused on making something work the way we want it to, and ignore the motivations or the nature of the person or the thing for what it is.
It's not that we shouldn't give a chance when someone or something deserves it - for not everything or everybody deserves a chance at rectifying, and that's exclusively up to us to decide - but we must realize when the chance stops being realistic, when are we trespassing beyond a fair chance and walk into hanging hopes where there's nothing to hope for.
This reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With The Wind, and how she held her hope and her undying love for Ashley Wilkes, a man who had never intended to marry her. As I read the story I'm surprised at how everything looks different than in the movies. As it turns out, Ashley never tells her that he loves her, but confuses her with several tokens of appreciation that can be taken the wrong way. He leads Scarlett in a rather cruel way to think that he does harbor feelings for her, keeps her in confusion with his actions, but withhelds from her the one thing that could materialize the ideas he himself has planted in her head.
You would stand confused, looking at an improbable scene. How can Scarlett being so strong and determinated fall for the cheap antics of a feeble, cowards, weakling like Ashley? Well, because that happens all the time. We live in a world of Ashleys and Scarletts, peppered with self-centered saints like Melanie, who act goodie-two-shoes, but can't pay attention to what happens around them, doesn't bother asking, but rather rely on their own conclusions, be those wrong or not, and thing that everything is always about them; as well as unsatisfied rascals who find pleasure in making others feel bad, using goodness only as a tool to later "prove" how people are despicable. These would be the Rhetts.
We are surrounded by people toying with our feelings, and yes, we ourselves might be Ashleys, deliberately keeping things on a very thing line of indefinition. It is our choice, however, to let our Ashleys yank our chains or if we are willing to turn them down, cut our their chances by ourselves and stop being their rag dolls. Yes, it can be done, after all, they need you to give them another chance. Deny it to them, spend your energy cleaning the space they've occupied and filling it with something new.
Don't devaluate your chances - those you give - don't spend them on people or things that won't appreciate their worth.
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