Who gives an efff?
We all commit mistakes. Calling yourself commitment-phobic doesn’t make you error-free. Fortunately, we learn too. Unfortunately, we forget most of our lessons. As we grow older, we notice a lot of changes taking place in the way we look at the world as well as the way we let the world look at us. It’s a beautiful progression, to picture the least, marked heavily by decay. Wrinkles, fatigue and forgetfulness are a few noted symptoms of this fascinating journey.
However, one factor remains distinct throughout: our ability to forgive. Forgiveness is a state of calm and it can’t be set up by anybody else. Only you get to reach your inner equilibrium. In this low-budget documentary, you are the sole subject of curiosity. Everybody and everything else happen to exist around you to help you reach your inner self.
Sounds too deep? Turns out it is deeper.
After all, there has to be a reason why it’s much easier to blame others than to see things from their perspective. What’re more compelling is our proclivity to grant ourselves the benefit of doubt again and again and again and again and again and again and then again. For some reason, we are special and everybody else are somehow worse. As a result of these self-fulfilling decisions, we are unable to forgive others as frequently as we forgive ourselves.
Therein lies the duality of forgiveness. It flows two ways. Something we don’t understand unless we find ourselves in a situation which dictates the terms of engagement with who we really are.
For example, let’s suggest you are in need of money and you’re unsure whether you should bother a friend about it. You need the money but at the same time, your pride is playing games with your peace. What if he doesn’t oblige? In such a scenario, you’re desperate to reach the denouement (my favourite French word) instead of going through the drill. You can’t wait to get over it, if not through it. In the end, you go ahead and spread your hands in front of your friend.
Now comes the moment of ultimate truth. If the friend acknowledges your dire condition and helps, well and good. If he decides to do the exact opposite, you are stuck in a weird case of what I’d like to call ‘double unforgiveness’. Insofar, you can’t forgive him because he betrayed your trust and hope. You can’t forgive yourself either because you were the one who decided to go ahead with the proposal. In simpler words, you’re doubly screwed. Earlier, we were talking about forgiving others. Imagine being in a mindframe where you can’t forgive two people, one of which is you.
I think that’s the expanse of forgiveness. It begins with you and flows toward others and when it completes its course, it flows back to you. They say no good deed goes unpunished but can they say the same about being forgiving? Perhaps the answer is no. Forgiveness takes either immense strength or solid indifference. And a weak person can’t muster these criteria.
I wrote this blog post thanks to a conversation I had with my brother recently. According to him, I am an unhappy person who doesn’t sleep well because I don’t forgive myself. He has a point. Whenever I goof up, I tend to brood too much and stay tense for a relatively long while. This is interesting to me for a simple characteristic: I forgive others even before they err. Just take it and go. But when it comes to myself, I am relentlessly harsh. Maybe, the answer to my problem lies in the F-word but it has to flow from within.
