Trawl through the catalogue of songs and learn the desperation and despair of life. From “It Don’t Come Easy” to “If it Wasn’t for Bad Luck, I Wouldn’t have no Luck at all”, life at some stage is going to toss you a curve ball. But what can you do to hang in there, get back in the saddle and ride the tail of a second chance.

Another song comes to mind, “I get shot down, but I get up again, ain’t never going to keep me down”. The essential ingredient for grasping a second chance is attitude. Act like a loser, be a loser.

Having cleared that out of the way, there are five important things to remember that will provide the impetus to move forward.

1. You are not alone. There are examples everywhere of first attempts that did not make it. It can be in personal relationships, financial aspirations, businesses, sporting achievements, where the dream did not match up to the reality. That is life. You are not alone in the experiencing this, and if you want to share your experience to help yourself or help others, there will be a ready ear waiting for you.
2. There is always someone worse off than you. Take stock of what you do have rather than dwelling on what you do not. I was humbled when waiting for the Doctor, my body enduring the terrible pain of a bad back. Another patient arrived as I was waiting, wheelchair bound. And later a girl in a neck to thigh full body plaster. I counted my blessing that all I had was a bad back which pain relief and rest would remedy.
3. Time does heal. Time does heal so if you are suffering from the failure of the first go, in whatever area that might be, the memory will dim in time. The best way to speed time passing is to fill it with experiences. Go for a walk, see a movie, pick a place at random and visit it, do something you have not done before, meet with friends, or talk to someone in the street. Experiences do not happen sitting in front to of the TV or lying in bed.
4. Learn from your experience(s). How many times have you heard, “With the benefit of hindsight, things might have been different”? You now have hindsight, what a gift! Take stock of the past so you can better build the future. Be brutal in your honesty, there is no point kidding your self. Was it just money? Was it just because you were never home? Was it because you trusted people you should not have? Or was it because you did not do the work, or under-planned, or underestimated. Was it ever possible for the dream and the reality to live together in Utopian bliss? Were your expectations too high so failure was inevitable before you had even started?
5. Love life. Those that have a smile, those that breathe a passion, those that enjoy each day and each moment in the day are the ones that can grasp anything that comes their way. It was Ray Davies of the Kinks who asked the question.” If Life is for living, what is living for?” My answer would be Love or whatever word you put in there that describes the happiness of being, of trying, and trying again and again.

But I had already mentioned attitude.