How to Forgive: Can You Do It at All?

Years ago, I read an article (I forgot who wrote it) that stated that forgiveness is a choice we make, and that in order to forgive we must simply do so. This is to say, you may be mad, upset or hurt by the one who has wronged you, and you may hold on to these feelings for a very long time, but you can also simultaneously forgive them if you choose to. You may have to have a serious amount of stamina to sustain a forgiving attitude depending on how much you have been wronged.

It sounds easy enough. You forget nothing, you just forgive.

Forgiveness is not for you; not something you do to “feel better”. When you forgive someone else, you cannot sit back and wait to reap the rewards of a clean mental slate. Well, you could wait to get the results, but they would be false comforts. If you forgive someone because you think they’re a jerk or fool and forgiving them makes you the better person, all you have done is insisted upon gaining the upper hand. In other words, the forgiveness you have granted only sustains the belief that you are less than someone else by trying to rise above them. So again, forgiveness is not undertaken for you to unburden yourself.

Forgiveness is a momentary point in time, not a permanent state of refuge from harm or pain. In fact forgiveness can make a person feel worse in the short term. To forgive is to admit you were duped, bamboozled. Our ego doesn’t like to do that (if we honestly admit we got fooled or victimized, it hurts). Pride is what holds a grudge. But such pride (or shame) is human nature.

So remove your ego and go for forgiveness? Should or can you forgive another? In this respect, forgiveness may be like a Zen koan. Its dialectic is irresolvable and paradoxical. The reason to forgive someone is to make yourself peaceful and unstuck from the past, but if you forgive another for selfish reasons the forgiveness is not genuine.

On my good days I can forgive other people. On my bad days there are no such compromise.

I wonder if I can ever know how much I may have hurt other people, or if I truly want to know. Sometimes I forget the street runs both ways.

I’m thinking about this topic because I feel it’s significant, and I am trying to apply it to my own life at the moment. I wonder if I can forgive some people I have known. Sometimes it seems I can, other times it seems impossible. But perhaps that’s what forgiveness is; a struggle to transcend a selfish state and understand other people and their limitations by confronting your own.

Forgiveness is not necessary or always the ‘right thing’ to do. On the contrary, if you’re not prepared to forgive someone and try to, it’s like trying to learn to swim by practicing in a lake on a moonless night. The right idea, the wrong time to do it. Think long and hard about who you wish to forgive and why, enlist advice or support from other people if you can. But do try it. Don’t become frustrated if you see no progress right away, or if you don’t hear what you want to hear. Forgiveness seems a practice of an act, and not a single act itself.