Forgiveness

I spoke yesterday about why holding grudges does not necessarily make sense if you want to lead a consistently happy life. Grudges seem to subtract from positive emotions and let the negative fester. Grudges if left unchecked can lead to relationships becoming fractured. I took a mostly personal tone and also spoke from a “trivial” perspective. Trivial in the sense that the grudges I discussed were little actions that in the grand scheme of life, do not matter. Today the conversation will continue to discuss forgiveness and why you can forgive without forgetting.

Forgiveness is a part of life because no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes both individually and at the expense of others. Life is full of pain, tragedy, and events where people feel wronged. Forgiveness is the action and emotion we use to move on and come to peace with those who hurt us. Like holding grudges, the inability to forgive will lead to negative emotions and negative outlooks on life cultivating inside of you.

Once again speaking on trivial and small matters, forgiveness should be a feeling that comes naturally and nearly instantaneously. If the action that needs to be forgiven was not a big deal, forgive it! Move on! If the person who made a mistake at your expense is close to you, they probably feel bad. If the person was a random person, they could have continued on without even knowing what happened. In either case, choosing to forgive helps you go about your day in a better way. There is no reason to let small actions ruin the rest of your day.

In moving to graver issues, there are absolutely mistakes, events, and pain that are not as easy to simply flip a switch and forgive. These larger, more catastrophic issues may warrant grief, anger, sadness, and other coping emotions before forgiveness is considered. That is okay! Life happens in ways where bad things happen all the time. Take the time to handle these events however you need to, but there will come a point where the next step is to forgive. In these events, forgiving can help give you closure, it can help you repair a broken relationship, and can help you move on.

Whatever the scenario, these events cause your life to be different going forward. Forgiving those who wronged you helps you to move on. However, forgiveness in this case does not mean becoming forgetful. In the cases of catastrophe, forgiveness is your ability to let go of negative feelings and continue leading your own life. Not forgetting who wronged you, how they wronged you, and what they did, will ensure it does not happen again. In events like these, you don’t have to pretend like life goes back to normal, you can forgive without forgetting.