Life Lessons

To err is human; to forgive is divine. Alexander Pope

Hmmm…I guess there must be something in the air this weekend because this forgiving stuff is seriously running its course through my system and turning out to be a whole lot easier with practice. I have never been one to hold a grudge or to dwell on things for too long. I have definitely never been a fan of drama and the drama appears to be over and done with for the most part, aside from an occasional email from the third party via fb which has actually just been pretty hilarious and a little sad (not for me of course).

All in all, I just have better things to concern myself with. I don’t see the point of being upset with myself. So, I end up being out a few hundred dollars…no, I truly can’t afford to be out that much money. Yea, I missed a truck payment and Vegas is definitely out now, but hey, life is going on and I’m going to move right along with it.

So…in case you haven’t figured out, today I have forgiven douche bag #2 (boy, I better get to work on these nicknames, huh?) Yes, (gasp) he lied, but I knew he was lying – it was comical for a little while because he thought he was getting away with it, but then it just got annoying. If nothing else I am a great detective and a fantastic bluffer (need to play poker more). There is no reason not to forgive him…now this doesn’t mean that I have forgotten, but I read somewhere that when you hold resentment toward another that you are bound to that person by an emotional link that is stronger than steel and forgiveness is truly the only way to dissolve that link and get free. And I am definitely all about my freedom!

Life is great…there are all these wonderful life lessons to be learned and I am a true student of life and I wouldn’t have it any other way. One thing that I have learned is that if you fail a lesson in life, you can expect to have a pop quiz on the subject matter again when you least expect it! :)

Trials and tribulations…joys and sorrows, they are all fantastic in their own right!

A little of what I have learned…

I have learned that there are imperfections in every human being (myself included). Loving and trusting a person to be who they are and to behave appropriately is just one of those things. If you trust someone in the wrong way, and they disappoint you, you were the one who was mistaken, therefore, you must revise your expectations of the person, and then your opinion of the life lesson they are learning and you make the choice to forgive. You chose to forgive, but not necessarily forget, because just like you they are working on whatever life lesson they failed. Now be advised they may fail again because some people may fail the same life lesson many times before learning it and if you chose to allow that person to stay in your life or at a later date bring them back into your life, you can only trust that they are working on it (they cannot really do otherwise because they are going to have to get it right eventually…even though it may end up being in another life) and love them in spite of it, or perhaps even because of it and who they are. Because you can only hope that they will do the same for you, for we are all learning our own lessons.

Grudges…Grudges are directly counter to this. They are attempts to freeze situations as they are, and ultimately stop or preclude growth. They do this by fostering the assumption, either openly or tacitly, that the person who hurt you will always be at that level of development (that that is the way they are and they will remain, you know that "evil person" who basely betrayed you and will always do so, that person who should suffer greatly for their offense against you) and/or stops you from growing by holding onto that pain, by assuming that you were completely, or mostly, in the right and did little or nothing to contribute to the outcome of the situation. You disclaim self-responsibility and stop yourself from learning the lessons you need to because you blind yourself to them. This self-as-victim and other-as-"batwings-from-hell" is false -- you were two (or more) growing and developing humans who, together, created a situation; now, what can you learn from this?

Forgiveness…. Many people seem to have the idea that to practice forgiveness is to somehow make yourself into a sap, someone too weak to "stand up for themselves" or a masochist – sometimes, I truly wonder about this one ;). That is a defense, like the other self-righteous blinders previously discussed. Forgiveness is difficult. It takes time and effort; it requires a measure of self-responsibility, directly addressing the problem and pain, and forgoing the pleasure of vindictiveness. It requires that you deal with them not just all-at-once, but on a continuing basis while the pain heals and you must either attempt to change the situation in some constructive manner or admit that the situation cannot be changed by you and accept that. However, it does stop the cycle, reduces your anger along with the feelings that you need to force someone to change, allows less accumulation of "bad karma," and gets you back on track in learning life lessons. It changes your world by allowing you to love more, feel more hopeful, be optimistic, sleep better, to be less anxious or depressed, and just too truly enjoy your life, which is something you had probably forgotten about. It doesn’t reduce your ability to be assertive (in fact, it actually enhances it because you improve your self-esteem), and the more you do it, the more your attitude and world improve (good karma) and the less you find you have to do it because you are being hurt less often because you are less sensitive and looking for a reason to be hurt.