One More Chance

No one who receives a card from me has any trouble determining who sent it.  It will be the least decipherable one in the lot.  For mine is a very artistic handwriting: a page of my penmanship looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Of course my teachers didn't appreciate this when I was a child, but then, neither did I.  Every September I'd gaze fondly at my new, unwritten-in notebooks and swear I'd make them things of beauty‑-neat, legible beauty.  I took their rapid descent into the undecipherable as a personal challenge.  Annually I would pick up the gauntlet; yearly I would lose the duel.  But while I've never achieved a readable script, I've picked up some things almost as valuable.  In addition to a typewriter, I've acquired a definite taste for trying again, as well as a firsthand knowledge of what's needed to do so.

The prime necessity, of course, is stubbornness, a quality most of us have but refer to as will power.  This, regrettably, isn't sufficient.  Equally important is the day on which you begin your second try.  For this you need a significant date, one easily remembered. 

This is not so much a matter of superstition as of foresight.  For what's the use of quitting smoking, keeping the garbage can clean, or never letting the weeds take hold if some cynic is going to come along (and he is going to) and say, "Yeah?  For how long?"  Unless you have a precise answer for that misanthropic query, not all your will power is going to crown you with glory.

But your foresight in choosing your birthday, say, as your beginning point gives you the edge in this contest.  For now you can smugly retort, "Why ever since I've been _____ years old, I haven't trumped a partner's ace, had an untidy drawer, or forgotten to feed the pets."  With the facts at your fingertips like that, you can squelch any critic, and that alone is glory twice over.

But if your birthday isn't convenient, you can always begin your second chance on New Year's, another date easy to remember.  Then, two decades hence, you can boast, "Why for the last twenty years I've never been off my diet, lost the car keys, or overdrawn my account.  And since 19__, I've been learning to play gin rummy, holding my liquor, and enjoying olives."  This adroit use of statistics will help you prove to a corrupt and doubting world that you're a credit and a wonder‑-a joy to know.  You're indeed worthy of the second chance you were offered.

But what if you've taken the challenge and lost the draw?  What if your friends' comments on your obstinacy really were unjust and unwarranted?  Courage!  Resist all temptation to be reasonable.  Remind yourself that anyone can learn to be pigheaded.  Study the three-year-olds you know and profit from their example.  And remember, both birthdays and New Year's will be around again to give you another second chance.  That's why they're celebrated the world over.