FORGIVENESS. WHY WE SHOULD TRY TO FORGIVE?

 “Errare humanum est – to err is human” - Seneca

When we are hurt by someone else’s action or mistake, we rightly feel offended, angry, resentful or insulted.

The person who hurt us could be total stranger or known to  us, as a family member, a friend, a fellow worker, even our boss. When we are hurt, it is normal to react emotionally. However, we should remember that emotions are primitive feelings. Emotional reactions defy reasoning and logic. Emotions almost always cause improper reactions and behaviors. Therefore, before we react emotionally, we must be aware of our emotions, we must be able to control them with our willpower and then, try to learn some more information about the person, as to why he/she tried to hurt us by asking the following questions and thinking about them:

1.       Who is this person?

2.       Why did he/she try to hurt us?

3.       Was this hurtful action an accident or was it purposefully done to discredit and hurt us?

We should be intellectually  mature enough to accept their apology and forgive them for their innocent mistakes.

But hurtful actions that are purposefully done to hurt us, to discredit us, to unfairly treat us are totally different serious  matters that need our attention. We should never let anybody to treat us unfairly and step allover us. We should never let anybody make us feel inferior about ourselves. We should always defend our rights by making them know how we feel and why they are unfair and wrong.

However we should never carry a grudge or hatred towards any person or institution for the rest of our life. It saps our energy and warps our mind. We keep remembering, talking and complaining about them. Therefore it is better to forgive and forget about them. Forgiving does not mean we are a lesser person. It simply means that we are mature enough to know that we can’t change what ever happened in the past and that nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. Perfection only belongs to God.

An interesting scientific clinical study done in this subject in 2006 showed that people who are able to forgive and forget are much less prone to stress and development of stress induced diseases.

As I see it, under these circumstances, recalling a famous Buddhis saying could be very helpful: “Holding onto anger is like holding a hot coal with the intent throwing it at someone else, you are the one get burned.”