Do Overs

This past weekend I was thinking about reincarnation and some of the different philosophies on the subject. I am currently reading the book, Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss. It is a true story about his experience with a patient and past-life regression therapy. The book is interesting but I am certainly not schooled on the concept of reincarnation but I’ve been interested over the years. I think it was especially inviting during those periods in my life when I felt a sense of hopelessness. The times when I felt that life just wasn’t ever going to get any better. It was at those times that the idea of getting a chance to do it over again and perhaps “get it right” was a comforting thought. In the next life I’d be sure to be successful in love and remain a size 6 (might as well get everything right) and not get married until AFTER I finished my education. But I guess we all wish for a “do over” at some point in our lives. We know that sometimes in life we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again if we don’t learn from them. We’ve all seen people pick the wrong woman or man time and time again and each one a carbon copy of the last. But there is always hope…and that hope is that when we know better we will do better. That to me is the appeal of reincarnation. An opportunity to hope that this ISN’T all there is. We are on this earth for just a brief time but we are growing and learning hopefully all the time. It seems ironic that by the time we have gained any wisdom we have reached the end of our life cycle. It would almost seem reasonable that if we were to return again with just a little bit of that prior knowledge to build upon we might just get it right. I suppose reincarnation is the ultimate in recycling.