Do you forgive others and yourself?

I forgive others and myself. Life is too short and the world too cold and indifferent to waste your time living with hate in your heart.

I warm myself with the anger of a thousand suns.

Picking up from where I left off, I think self-forgiveness does require a gut-level acknowledgement that you’ve done wrong, and of the consequences of that wrongdoing, if there were any substantial consequences.

It means acknowledging that you fucked up in ways that are not the sort of person you want to be, and not being that sort of person is something that has to matter to you enough to try not to be that person going forward. (That’s ‘repentance’ translated into contemporary English, for those keeping score at home.)

It helps if you understand that to really change takes a certain amount of persistence: we’re flawed, and we’ll usually continue to fuck up in the same way even after the first inner equivalent of a come-to-Jesus moment about that particular kind of fuckup. You can’t just throw in the towel because you fucked up again in the same way; you’ve got to forgive yourself again, move forward, keep trying to be the person who doesn’t fuck up that way. Eventually, you get there.

By the time you get there with respect to that particular kind of fuckup, of course, you’ve realized that that’s not the only way you’re fucking up in ways that do yourself or others harm. But now, when you get to the point where you admit to yourself that you need to change, you’ve at least got a template for doing so.

Forgive and never forget, that way you don’t make the same “mistake” again, and you don’t allow other people to treat you badly.

Or something like that

Oddly, I feel the exact opposite.

My only consideration is how likely something bad is to happen again by that person. What done is done, and it is useless to dwell on it except to use it to predict the future.

So that is why I don’t easily forgive flaws. They usually are such an deepseated part of a person that the chance of improvement is very low. If someone’s flaws really hurt me, for instance by forgetfullness, carelessness, an angry temper or something like that, and if I don’t want to experience that again, I cut off contact. That is wat not forgiving means to me: I cut you out, you don’t get a second chance with me, I will have as little as possible to do with you.

If I still ahve to interact with them, like if they are co-workers or family, I just distance myself from them emotionally.

But a single slip, like your example of somebody who didn’t pay attention for a split second in the car and killed someone…Well, the likelyhood of that happening again is very, very low, isn’t it? If the guilty person has a normal conscience, he will fee so awfyl that it won’t happen a second time to him. He won’t be driving and texting again. (If he does, he’s beyond help and not only do I not forgive him, I probably will want that person removed from society all together)
If anything, that person is likely to try and be a better person then average, to redeem himself. So I see no reason not to forgive him.

Yeah I forgive people most of their misdeeds. I know that we are all equally fucked up and spend much of our lives acting in unthinking, kneejerk ways that simply recycle shit from the past. Most things that people do that harm me are just produced by their attempts to protect themselves from the reality of who they are.

I generally forgive other people easily – with some, I’ve really had to work at it.

As far as forgiving myself – this is a huge problem for me. I’m much harder on myself than anyone else to the point it’s kind of fucking me up.

I can always forgive people, but I can never forget what they did or how it made me feel. When someone apologizes for something they did that hurt me or damaged a friendship, I can say to them, I am glad you apologized to me and took the incentive, I forgive you for what you did, but the friendship can never be the same.

I find it easy to forgive myself as well because I was taught to never live with regrets, and that the best way to move forward is to not dwell on the past.

Well, that’s another way to go. :slight_smile:

If someone truly wrongs me I will never forgive them nor will i forgive myself if i truly wrong another. But day to day slights, i don’t worry about even if i don’t forgive. I guess I never forgive, never forget, and take no prisoners. There are a few people whose deaths would please me.

I forgive others and myself all the time. Life is too short to bear a grudge, especially against your own self. Live, learn, let go, and move on.