forgivess

Today I had lunch with a Ukrainian man who is a.holocaust survivor. He told me he has no hatred or anger towards the Germans as he does not believe in collective responsibility. Rather, everyone has free will. It got me thinking that if a holocaust survivor can forgive her wrongdoers, than we can forgive our enemies.

I forgive my enemies, but I do not forget. I do not wish vengeance, I want to be out of their reach. To be out of their reach one must escape. I've found by now I don't have to commit any crimes for people to receive their retribution - it happens naturally. One of the guys I went to high school with who vandalized my car got into a car wreck and died recently, due to not wearing a seatbelt. I didn't shed a tear, he lived off of pure spite. Similarly someone who tried to attack me and strangle me died of a heroin overdose. Again, not a tear shed. I forgave, but I didn't forget.

There's no real reason to waste time and energy hating and holding a grudge against someone. By doing so you're allowing them to have a form on control over you. As reaper said though its fine to forgive but not forget, these are the types of things you learn from. If a person continues on a destructive path then you can be sure they'll get whats coming to them.

Unless the person lives with me, I won't hold grudges since I would just forget about it after not seeing them for a while. Even if a friend offends or belittles me without ever apologizing, I'll eventually forget about it if I spend a month or two away from them.

I often remind myself that even the people who wrong me weren't born as they are. Something happens to a person to twist them from an innocent child to being a thief or bigot or just a plain ol jerk. And besides... I'm too lazy to put forth the effort to hate someone

I never hold a grudge for too long unless I really hate the guy/girl irl. But that barely happens. I'm one of those lax Otaku that seems to be really calm in alot of situations where people would usually be pissed off. I honestly don't know how long it has been since I've been mad or annoyed at anyone. o_o