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© Richard J Tilley. All Rights Reserved.
balance = properly appraised
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You don’t have to forgive yourself. That is really not a thing. People say that it is and will even try to convince you that it is something that must be done, but no honor is served by doing so. Stop and think it over. Do you really, truly forgive yourself for what you know is unforgivable? While it is true there are a great many things that we may tend to needlessly blame ourselves for and find ourselves contained within false guilt complexes, it is also a fact of life and some people do things – as adults – that do not deserve forgiveness. If you feel the need to be forgiven, address it with those whom you have wronged. However, for yourself, stop trying to pile your mind into a neat forgiveness package. Try it. Just stop. You will begin to see more clearly. Suddenly those clouds around you will turn to Paris in spring.
There is honor in being honest with ourselves. Just as there is honor is not blaming ourselves needlessly. What is at stake is your conscience. Is your conscience served by forcing false forgiveness. It’s a dreamlife. While there are some dreams worth keeping alive, like always striving to do better, there are some negative dreams, such a building a castle of lies for you to rest easy in. You are told forgiveness leads to light. However, it a real and fundamental truth that excessive forgiveness leads to living within dark cognitive maps.
Excessive forgiveness leads to being blinded by our own morality and, furthermore, just leads to more suffering. We are not meant to be martyrs because of the wrongs we have committed. Can one be a martyr for having done wrong by others? No. Then why force people into this headspace where they MUST believe that only through forgiveness will their burden be lightened? Acceptance is overlooked as a viable option. We are capable of acceptance. It is not wrong. It may not lead to the gloried-way-after, but you will live in sober truth.
Perhaps it is true that God can wipe away our tears and perhaps it is true that God comforts those that suffer, but even if those evocations of wisdom literature hold canonical weight, it does not mean that we should disregard ourselves as really being alive in the here and now and really having to live with ourselves, the things we have done, the things we have not done, and things we have not done yet. Notice the catch. There are still things we have yet to do and what we make of our future can go a long way towards a sober reasoning of how we estimate our past. Forgiveness comes with a sobered esteem of oneself.