Interdisciplinary Psychology:

Forgiveness  

            I struggled terribly with this exercise. I just couldn’t think of any one person that I would like to “forgive” for what they have done. I can’t stand the fact that we live in a world of victims and that everybody perceives themselves as the victim and never the perpetrator. I’m in no way suggesting that this exercise isn’t useful, but I just didn’t have any obvious person to forgive. In an effort to still use the idea of forgiveness, I altered the activity slightly.

            Over the past week, I’ve consciously made an effort to forgive people in my day to day life. The more I thought about it, people are always saying “I’m sorry”. I heard it from grocery store clerks when the credit card machine was broken, Subway employees when the service was slow, and fellow dog walkers when their pets were rude. The point is, people are always apologizing. Although it’s a sign of being polite, plenty of people take these opportunities to get upset and fire back impolite comments to the people that are trying to help them. I by no means was doing anything great, but by forgiving these strangers in my life and letting them know that they were doing just fine, I knew I was doing a very small thing that could potentially make their day. I even did some non verbal forgiveness when distracted drivers almost ran me off the road. By not honking or “giving the bird” to these people, I let them know that I forgave them for making an honest mistake.

            Although I didn’t follow the steps to forgiveness for any one person, I did do some minute particulars in the lives of many. Who knows, maybe it made just a little bit of a difference.