REDO: [verb/noun ree-doo] def: to do again; repeat.
START OVER: [verb stahrt oh-ver] def: to begin again, to start anew
They sound like the same thing, but they are far from the same.
Same, same. But different.
Let me explain.
Remember college? No, not the parties and the people and the fun. The actual college part. Maybe it was one particular class or maybe, you were like me and it was the entirety of your career choice. But, do you recall that time in the semester when assignments and tests had come left you with a drowning feeling…drowning in your inevitable, impending failure… If this wasn’t a reality for you, then I am sure you’ve had dreams about it. Waking you up in the middle of the night. Somehow you are walking into a final exam you haven’t studied for. I still have those dreams. (yeesh) …
Its at that time you start to either wish for a redo… or a start over.
With redos, your brain takes you into an imaginary, fairytale life. You replay your couldas, shouldas, and wouldas and spiral into feeling more and more like a failure. “If only I can redo that test, that conversation, that day, etc.” AND while you are stuck replaying the past, you are also dreaming of a future day, when all gets to be redone. Its then when you will be more organized, more rested, richer and smarter with a better sense of fashion.
Your thoughts sound like this, “…I have failed or I am about to… if only I could redo this whole thing. Next semester, I am not going to Netflix the entire season of The Office the night before the test or find people for breakfast rather than sit in class… I am going to go to the library, study all the days, memorize every word out of my teachers’ mouths, sit in the front row, while being fully awake, clean and showered and take notes in 4 different colored pens, cure cancer in my time off, exercise 8 days week and be the smartest girl on the planet…. next semester I am going to be so good at life.”
Ya been there?
When I set out to redo something, there is an implied failure. Something, probably me, failed and it must be redone.
Redos = bleh.
But Start-Overs, they are the literal greatest. They are the first day of a new semester (typically known as syllabus day); when you still have an A+ and you haven’t failed any tests, assignments or in my case, missed days on days of class.
You are flawlessly successful, because there has yet to be anything to fail at.
You are done with the last semester and not one test you took can come back and get you or hurt you. You are in the sweet spot. The old is done and the new is bright and you are straight killing it.
Start overs imply grace, a wiping clean and separation from the previous. All of a sudden, you are in a new place of knowledge or perspective and get to begin again. Its almost like when you are learning a new game and you just got a practice round.
Now that I am free and clear of the college drama, the fear of failure still exists.
To combat some of that, l establish Start Over Days. They get implemented after weeks of eating as though every day is Christmas but really its only August, or when I haven’t worked out in days (like hundreds of days) because I’ve been “busy”. Or when I have been in a season of feeling out of place, of not belonging, or discontent and I need something to change. I need a sweet spot or a new semester or a start over to put me back into a place where the old is so old it can’t come back and get me and the new is so new, I have yet to mess up.
(See, Dad, college taught me things.) As adults we still need new semesters and spring breaks (but we have to call them “vacations” now). We need new semesters in the middle of life. Where our failed tests of not eating healthy, having a terrible attitude or sucking at being a functional adult are left in last semester and can’t continue to haunt me.. uh… I mean us…these are general terms, obviously.
This is what I have been chewing on for the last week and as I read through Isaiah I see this in 43:18-19 where God says, “Do not earnestly remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth…”
Even the Lord is interested in start overs. While redos keep you spiraling in the past or dreaming of a failure-free future, start overs allow you to be begin again right where you are. You and I are more than likely partway through some metaphorical semester and a start over allows us to finish well, be present, and see what we need to see.
So sharpie it in your calendar. There is no limit on how many times you celebrate it, Tomorrow will be a new holiday: Start Over Day (the next day might be one too).
