7 Things To Consider Before Giving People A Second Chance This Year

2016 means new beginnings–new relationships, new friendships, new memories, and new adventures. This is your time to shed off old skin and be reborn into the person that you've always wanted to be. But how can you move on to the future, if bits and pieces of your past insist on reappearing? Specifically, what do you do if an old flame returns with new promises?

Before jumping into anything, take a walk and get a breather as you mull over these 7 essential thoughts. 

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

When you meet someone who entices your senses and creates flashes of electricity through your veins, you will feel as if you've been lit up. You feel the thunder inside of you, buzzing with adrenaline and the possibility of something absolutely wonderful amidst risk. But once you let this overpower you, you might find yourself struck by the force of it all and unable to recover. Despite this, you still might bounce back and choose to try it–the feelings, the threat, the everything–again. Anyway, lighting never strikes in the same place right? Though then again, there's a first for everything.

Idea vs. Person.

Once you've latched on to someone, your heart has a funny habit of amplifying every single good trait about that person. And although it's always good to look at the positive side of everything, this tendecy will make you fall prey to tunnel-vision thinking and blindness in terms of rationality. You end up creating an exaggerated version of the person to cater to your personal fantasies, and this image that you've conjured up is what you eventually fall for. Before giving anyone a second chance, stop for a second and think: Who do I want? The person or the idea?

Perspective of both sides.

Deciding whether or not to give someone a second chance is a battle between the head and heart. When faced with conflicts like this, our feelings tend to cloud our judgement thus leading us to act on impulse. Learn to find the balance; this way, your instinct will never outweigh your intelligence.

Realistic expectations.

It's natural to agree to give someone/something another shot under new, revised-since-the past terms; it's just right that you know that you deserve to have a certain standard for your friendships that will not be tolerated if disregarded. But telepathy and mind-reading is a feat that only really exists in movies and fiction–even with the best communication skills, you still don't know what ulterior motives (if any) are hiding up your person's sleeves. Can you manage a compromise? Or will it be a dealbreaker if they can't strictly comply?

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