An Argument for Do-Overs

When I was a kid my family lived in Houston, Texas and I had a great life. Our neighborhood was full of kids, and we did what kids did in those days: riding bikes, exploring the woods, catching toads that lived under a hollow tree in my yard, and fishing in the drainage canals near my school. On warm evenings we would play out in the street, stuffing tennis balls into pantyhose legs and throwing them into the air to catch little brown bats, playing baseball, and playing kickball with four-square balls.

 One of the best things about baseball and kickball in those days was “do-overs”. If you were the batter or kicker and you happened to swing and miss or flub a kick you could yell “Do-Over”, and the other kids had to give you another chance. It was a universal rule that everyone got at least one Do-Over and no one ever challenged the other kid’s Do-Over because they all wanted their own second chance if they happened to flub up. 

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood we lose the notion of do-overs. I’m not sure if someone tells us that life doesn’t allow do-overs and that we must adhere to the rule of “choice and consequence”, or if we come to that conclusion by ourselves. Somewhere along the way we learn to choose carefully because we will have to live with our choices, for better or worse.

I see this a lot in my young clients who grew up with social media. They’ve seen the positive and negative consequences of people’s choices their whole lives and feel immense pressure to make “good choices” that lead to health, happiness, and successful lives. Fear of failure whispers for them to “be careful” about their futures, their career choices, and their relationships. I’ve known several who wouldn’t date for fear of choosing (and subsequently marrying) the wrong person, and even more who work menial jobs and live with their parents, rather than risking failing at life on their own.

 We have too few redemption stories in our culture – pictures and narratives about people whose lives went horribly wrong, by choice or circumstances, but overcame those to experience something beautiful or amazing. Most people don’t know that many of history’s icons failed often or even wrestled with their own mental health.

 Did you know Sir Isaac Newton was a horrible student, Abraham Lincoln was a military and business failure, Winston Churchill was a political failure more often than he wasn’t, Walt Disney experienced bankruptcy twice before creating Mickey Mouse, and J.K. Rowling’s manuscript for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was rejected twelve times before it was accepted? (Even then, Rowling’s publisher told her to get a day-job because it was unlikely that she would make it as a writer.) Each of these people experienced multiple fails in their lives before finally experiencing success, often reinventing themselves (taking a do-over) along the way.

 Experiencing poor choices, failures, and negative consequences are good things if we learn from them AND are allowed to make new starts. In fact, we teach our children to distrust their judgement and their competence when we hover and don’t allow them to experience failing and trying again. As a friend once told me, “Sometimes we need to let them skin their knees for them to learn to get up and try again.” (Skinning your knees becomes a bigger deal as you get older and begin to fear breaking your hip, but the principle remains.) It’s better to try and fail, than to cease trying and accept the negative circumstances life gives you.

 I’m a firm believer in do-overs, I’m an advocate for second chances, and I’m a sucker for redemption stories where something good or amazing grows out of someone’s tragedy. No matter your age or how difficult your circumstances, there’s always an opportunity for a new start. The challenge is to make the choice to get up, dust yourself off and try again.

 So, the next time you make a mistake or fail at something, no matter how big or small it is, I encourage you to dust off your pants and say or yell “Do-Over” to no one in particular. People around you may think you’re strange, but you’ll have given yourself permission to go out and try again. Better yet, extend a do-over to someone in your life who could really use one. You may just change a life.