Fool Me Twice

     We've all heard the old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me", right? And I think we can all agree it cautions us against giving second chances to someone who has wronged us in the past. In other words, if we are fooled by a person in some way a first time, they should be ashamed for treating us badly, but if we are fooled by them a second time, we should be ashamed for not learning from that first time. Are you with me so far?
     Now, this is very good advice to follow when you have been scammed by a stranger or acquaintance, but I am here today to argue in favor of giving the people we love second chances. There are times when someone we love, whom we believe also loves us, hurts us so badly in some way we don't want to ever give them any opportunity to do so again. And we may need to back off and take some time to lick our wounds and learn from what happened. It's possible we contributed in a small - or large - way to the circumstances that caused us so much pain and will need to make changes in our own behavior.
     Once we've had that opportunity, I say it's not only the kind, but also the wise, thing to see what we can salvage of our relationship. If the other party has taken responsibility for their actions by apologizing and has tried to make amends and learn from the experience themselves, it is obviously kinder to them if we give them another chance. It is also kinder to ourselves, if we love them and had a relatively good relationship with them before the derailing incident. People who really love us are rare and shouldn't be discarded lightly!
     But how is it the wise course to get back in the ring with someone who KO'd us the last time we were in there? For the very fact that it is the kind thing to do. If we want to live in a world where imperfect people learn from their mistakes, it is wise to reward others' efforts to learn, change and grow. This is called positive reinforcement. As this quote attributed to Gandhi says, "be the change that you wish to see in the world." Don't we all want others to be understanding and forgiving of our faults and foibles? Aren't we all trying to do good, yet finding often we didn't do as well as we had hoped? Another way of thinking of it is the Golden Rule, simply stated as, "treat other as you would like to be treated." I also believe that judging others too harshly damages us in some emotional way. The tendency is to judge others by our own yardstick, so if we find another's actions inexcusable even though they have admitted to their wrongdoing and tried to change, we are telling ourselves, on a subconscious level at least, that we cannot be forgiven for our mistakes in similar circumstances, thus setting ourselves up for unrelenting guilt for all our life mistakes. See, we can get away from someone else we deem inexcusable, but it's very hard to get away from oneself, and the ways we humans try usually lead to more and more psychological pain for us and those around us. In the long run, it uses up a lot less of our emotional and physical resources just to learn to take it a little easier on ourselves and those around us. Life on this planet can be hard enough without us making it harder!        
     However, if you've been fooled twice and decide to give the perpetrator a chance to go for number three, well all I can say is, now you're dancing with the definition of insanity, Sister!

DISCLAIMER: What I've said here does not apply to our relationships with our minor children (should we be fortunate enough to have any of the little darlings lying about the house). That is a whole nuther ball of wax and must be played by an entirely different rulebook!