I Forgive

It isn't easy, but I'm working hard to forgive those who have wronged me, particularly those who (in my view) have wronged me in my professional life.

I'm not doing it for the sake of reconciliation: if I were staying, that would be important but since I'm going, reconciliation is probably impossible, not to mention irrelevant.

I'm not doing it for their sake or their benefit: I don't think they care whether or not I forgive them, and if they don't care I can't imagine how my forgiveness would affect them.

I'm not even doing it to be noble: as much as the next person, I like to imagine myself as some "paragon of virtue," but I know the difference between what I imagine and what I really am, and in this case what I really am is selfish.

First, I don't want to be the kind of guy who doesn't forgive. It's a matter of my own self-image; I have to forgive them to be the kind of guy I want to be.

Second, I don't want to give that kind of negativity any of my mental real estate. I'd rather reserve space in my mental landscape for positive, uplifting, happy thoughts; don't want the crap attached to unforgiveness cluttering things up.

Third, I don't want to carry the baggage of resentment and anger into the awesome (and ambiguous) adventure that is my future. It has no place in the life I'm making for myself.

In the cases I'm thinking of, forgiveness does not mean pardon. I do not excuse the wrong done, nor explain it away; it was wrong! Nor does it mean pretending there was no harm done; I suffered (and suffer) harm. It doesn't mean forgetting they wronged me, and it doesn't mean extending trust to them.

What it means is that I am done seeking either justice or vengeance. No longer will I pursue recompense or recourse, retribution or revenge. No longer will I seek to balance the scales, paying them back for what they did for me. It's been said, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind," and whether in justice or in vengeance, that is the path of unforgiveness.

If this is a competition to see who gets away with the most—the most 'stuff' or the most power or the most whatever—I concede the match; they win. But for me, it's no competition at all, and the way one wins is by giving up notions of balancing scales, of justice and vengeance, and simply divesting oneself of the burden or resentment.

So "they" screwed me. So what? If I hang onto resentment, they keep screwing me without even knowing they're doing it; I've become an accomplice to my own violation.

For very selfish reasons, then, I choose forgiveness. I choose it because it's noble (and I want to be noble), I do it because it's good (and I want to be good), but most of all, I do it for very pragmatic reasons: for the good of my soul and for the lightness of my being moving forward into an awesome new life.