The problem with Forgiveness

The problem with Forgiveness...IS outcome. When you want things to turn out a certain way, and if you are sure that by being gentle, kind and forgiving, you might run the risk of not having things turn out that way, then you will not forgive. And so  while the punishment fits the crime, you are sure that with forgiveness, there will be no punishment. And that you can’t have.

I suppose at least one example is called for, because I don’t think this problem with forgiveness and outcome is easy. So Forgiveness…. Once upon a time, there was a bad, bad person. This was an employer. So bad in fact that cruelty marked her regime. But I wanted to forgive, mainly because all the fear and hate I was having, was eating me up.

But I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t forgive. I knew that the hate was motivating me hugely to quit and move on, and without it, I feared I wouldn’t or couldn’t leave. So I  put up with the job, and just keep hating.

Do you know people like that, Those that endlessly complain about their lot, but seem unwilling or unable to change? Anyway, I took a gamble and worked on forgiving, so I could live in peace again. And do you know what? The motivation to move on, to quit never left me. Got easier to do. I never expected that.

 I some how was able to see my boss as a hopelessly miserable person, and insane. Filled with so many wrong notions about her employees that she had no choice but to think the way she did. That’s a good definition of insanity by the way.

Insanity is when what you know breeds unhappiness, but you interpret the unhappiness as coming from “your employees”, or anything else you suspect to be the blame. Your logic seems impenetrable, solid, and reasonable. I’m sure Hitler was sure his notions were pure and reasonable too.

Lunatic asylums are full of people who know without a shadow of a doubt, that there is nothing wrong with them. Yet their thinking is full of mistakes they can’t see.

And that’s the problem,, neither can we. To see the mistakes in what we know and how we came to the conclusions we did is like having a blind spot, and we therefore need the help of someone else we can trust to point out our mistakes.

Clearly, some of the people we might ask for help are also insane to a degree. So where do we go for guidance? Well, we might ask for an inner guidance. Often times, we can supply our own terrific insights. Usually though, when we are not in the middle of our dilemmas and judgements, and that is often when we are fast asleep.

 Sometimes a dream can yield a solution we would never have considered. And we can use this dream feature to our advantage.

We can write on a slip of paper, asking for some related thoughts, insights and ideas on the matter at hand. Slide this under your pillow and wait till morning.

Sometimes the answers and ideas come flooding in, and sometimes you have to repeat the writing thing for a few days before you get results. In any case this pillow writing thing is good for all sorts of things. Even the various ways you could understand forgiveness is a question you could write, and then wait for the answers. They just pop up in your head.

But back to forgiveness and why it’s so hard to do.  Forgiveness dissolves the very picture of the problem you hold, and the solutions to that problem. So thinking about forgiving takes away the solution you have already decided upon, and leaves the problem irritatingly unsolved.

And if you think about forgiving some more, you might feel better and the hate gone, but the problem as they say, is still there. And that’s the insanity.

The prevalent idea is that to forgive, while it might leave you feeling calm, contented and rested, will also leave you weak and incapable of the motivation to solve anything. A sort of sickly …”I’ll just let it be”.

 Of course this is insane and comes from a mind at war. A mind filled with fear and loathing, that can not think in any other way. And in that mind set, everything we consider at that point seems the only way possible.

In fact with forgiveness comes better solutions. And interestingly, in no way are you locked into doing these solutions, you always feel you have the choice between the old siege mentality solution or from forgiveness’s gift of peace.

And the surprise still is that forgiveness is the great motivator. The changes that occur with forgiveness, are so powerful as to lift tall buildings in a single bound. However be warned, forgiveness’s solutions will not be in any vein like the ones considered during siege mentality. But, they will work!

Paul