A Dear Abby column carried a poem titled Decide to Forgive that was written by Robert Muller, a former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. Several lines in the poem caught my attention:
To forgive is the highest,
Most beautiful form of love.
In return you will receive
Untold peace and happiness.
The column then ended with this statement: “Only the brave know how to forgive. A coward never forgives. It is not in his nature.” This explains why cowardly people are not very happy. Since, as a rule, they don’t forgive, they’re always carrying a heavy load of resentment. The problem with resentment is that it consumes us from the inside, and it makes us miserable. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Carrying a grudge is like taking poison and hoping it kills your enemy.” In reality, the only victim is the one who fails to do the forgiving. So be brave and take the high road. Be the one who forgives first rather than waiting for others to forgive you. You’ll be much happier and so will the people you forgive.
Dr. Reck,
A computer technician downloaded a Windows 10 program for me and inadvertently lost over 100 business resumes that I had collected for my job as an Executive Recruiter. Also lost were several hundred photos which could not be duplicated from my personal photos, many taken by a phone camera of family, friends, and events.
After a long and bitter year of regret and anger, I decided, since it couldn’t be fixed, it was time to get over it so I called the tech, who was himself distressed at his mistake, and told him that I forgave him. It was a relief to both of us.
I first learned the lesson of forgiveness as it applied to debt, small loans to people who would never get around to repaying them. If you forgive them the debt you don’t have to fret over it anymore…