Forgive and forget

“In life only one thing is certain, apart from death and taxes: no matter how hard you try, no matter how good your intentions, you are going to make mistake. You are going to hurt people. you are going to get hurt. and if you ever want to recover, theres really only one thing you can say… forgive and forget. That’s what they say. It’s good advice, but it’s not very practical. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. when someone wrongs us, we want to be right. without forgiveness old scores never settle. old wounds never heal, and the most we can hope for is that someday we’ll be lucky enough to forget.”-Grey's Anatomy

In all honesty, no matter how hard we try, we will never forget. And maybe it's a good thing that we don't. By forgetting, you don't learn from it. By forgiving, you grow into a better person. Of course forgiving is not always as easy as it may seem. Sometimes people do or say things that are just not so easily forgiven. But the keyword in that sentence is PEOPLE. People are humans. Humans make mistakes. Humans have faults. Humans will disappoint you. It’s part of being a human.

Sometimes when you're hurt, you forget that the person who hurt you is a human. You become clouded by this anger and rage and then fail to realize that they're just being human. Of course it's also human to get hurt, to feel pain and disappointment. You then don't want to forgive because you want the others to know that they've wrong you and you want them to see it. You want them to feel the pain that they've caused you. Unfortunately, not all will. By forgiving you are releasing the pain that will eventually consume you if you don't.

"Why should I forgive and let them get away with what they've done?" That's a question I always asked when someone would tell me to just let it go. Then I realized that by keeping it in me, I was just hurting myself even more. You've ever noticed that when something is really bothering you, you can't seem to stop thinking about it? It takes up your day and distracts you from everything else you need to do. You then become caught up this need to seek out revenge or "pay back". You then become stressed, tense and irritable and in the end you're just one big mess. Never give someone that much power over you. By forgiving them, you're telling them that you're on a more advance level. You're giving them pardon for their misdoings.

Now like I said earlier, just because you forgive doesn't necessarily need to forget what happened. In fact, I urge you not to forget. When I say not to forget, I don't mean dwell on it either. I mean keep it as a reference. Keep it stored away for when you happen to be in a very similar predicament. Embrace it and make it your own. I know you're probably wondering "what is she talking about?" But seriously speaking, don't forget about it. If you forget about it you will not learn anything from it. I don't care what anyone says, you can always learn something from a bad incident. You can learn how to have a thick skin about certain things. You've learned a new way in which people can get under your skin.

By learning this, you can also learn how to prevent this pain in the future. You can create a new security system that will tell you "Hey wait! You've been through this before. Get out now before you get hurt again." You see how that works. So don't get hung up on getting even and seeking revenge. Try not to let people make you into your own worse enemy. Just take it as it is and try and get as much as you can from it because that's the only way you'll be able to grow.

Article by: Belle Chance - Helium