Second Chances. Do We Deserve Them?

Life is about second, third, fourth… just an endless number of chances, right?

We try and fail, get up, learn from the past mistakes and try better.

The older I get, the more I realize this approach applies to material things in life as well. The coat I bought 3 years ago and wore about 5 times could be swapped for another piece of clothing I’d actually wear. Likewise, my winter coat could serve its cause to another person who would wear it often.

I think we all have that one piece of clothing in our closets. It’s either the color we rarely wear, a little bit too tight, the waistline a little bit too loose, you name it. Ready to be worn, yet it just never happens to make it to our outfits. We simply fail to feel like wearing it. What to blame it on; is it us? Is it the clothing? Well, probably just a lack of mutual compatibility.

If humans deserve second chances, why material things shouldn’t?

Maybe they didn’t end up in the right hands for “the first time.” That doesn’t make them damaged in any way. Do you remember your first relationship? Did one miserable relationship label you damaged forever? Hell no. Did you deserve a second chance? Abso-fucking-lutely. If we deserve to get ourselves a better match, so do things. They also deserve to be reborn, viewed as beautiful, and serve their primary cause.

In January last year, I hastily left Shanghai with a half-empty (or half-full if you’re an optimist) suitcase. As all my clothes were left in my Shanghai home, I decided to start from scratch instead of spending a fortune on the hefty shipping fees.

Thrifting for hidden gems is quite relaxing, isn’t it?

Slowly building my new, small sustainable closet has been a beautiful process. Opting for up-cycled, reborn pieces with history, thrifting for hidden gems in the second-hand stores, or bringing back to life my grandma’s clothes. (a fashion diva wardrobe!)

Leading a more conscious lifestyle has been one of my resolutions for 2021. Implementing it slowly but steadily so that one day, I will finally reach the stage of not harming our beautiful planet with my life-choices.

Sometimes I wonder, does our planet think we still deserve a second chance? After all we put her through? Or do we deserve the climate crisis we have been so successfully avoiding to acknowledge?