by Morgan DeLange
Second chances, at one point or another we’ve all been given a second chance. The question is, did we utilize it or abuse the generosity of it? Generally, regardless of the answer, we are given a second chance, eventually anyways. Whether it be a second chance at life, a second chance at freedom, or a second chance with a friend’s/family members’ trust is still a second chance we generally do not deserve.
My first second chance, a memorable one not just something small, happened when I was fifteen. I ended up in juvie for assaulting my step-father and causing a serious injury to him. The form my second chance came in was not a free ride going back home, but a foster home. Then less than a year later, I was sent home, and I got my second chance, yet due to another assault on my step-father, which once again instead of juvie was another foster home. The third chance was an exact repeat of the first two, go home, assault step-father, and go to a foster home.
As you can see, I didn’t deserve any of the three major second chances I was given and I took advantage of every single one of them. Now, I am in prison in a state I was only in for eight months, doing a life term. Do I deserve another chance? Obviously not, but guess what? I am on track to getting it right now. The reason for this is change. Not only my change, but the change of the attitudes of people who have influence on the prison and judicial systems as well. People are seeing now that second chances will have more effect on us as well as you, whether in juvie or in prison, when we show we deserve it.
Through going to self-help groups, doing school, going to church, and working when the opportunities are given, we can all earn our second chance.
I am in prison for a murder, and yet if I continue with what I’m doing, I may get one.
What are you doing with your time? Are you doing school, working, doing groups if they are given? Or, are you fighting, sleeping, playing games, and being completely unproductive, just waiting for your time to go home so that you can keep making the same bad choices you were making before?
You may not even think you deserve a second chance so you mess up and not care thinking nothing is going to happen. Remember things can get worse or they can get better. If you do what you can to make them better chances are your change will be recognized and you will receive your second third or maybe even, like me, your fourth chance. On the other hand, if you do nothing to improve then they will get worse, and remember everything can get worse.
If given another chance are you going to utilize it and make better choices or go back to doing the same dumb things you did before? A person only gets so many chances and if we don’t take advantage of what we are given while we can, eventually it will be too late. Use what you learn. Don’t forget it because that’s a surefire way to being right back where you are. Prove you deserve it. Don’t end up where I am, hoping and praying and having to spend every waking moment working for a chance that you don’t even deserve. If done right, you may not even get it. I am one of the lucky ones.
You’re probably in a position to get out and within the next two, five maybe ten years, hopefully sooner rather later, but keep in mind to utilize what is available. After all, it’s free and something that you don’t get after you get out. You may be paying temporarily with your freedom, but that was a choice you made when you made your negative choices. If that didn’t work, make a positive one. After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. If you want a different result such as getting out and staying out, change is necessary.
Now the final thought is this: You have the tools available to you no matter where you are, and if you are reading this from behind bars then they are even more readily available to you than most others. So, are you ready to use those tools or are you going to end up like me? Twenty-five years old, doing a life term with nothing but a prayer to go home?
“Do what you can with what you have where you are at.” -Theodore Roosevelt. Remember those famous words from President Roosevelt. You have a lot available now so use everything you have while you can. If you have limited resources use what you do have, and don’t wish you had more, because wishing does nothing, actions does!