When I sat down to do this activity I came to two wonderful realizations. The first was that I realized I don’t really hold grudges (which I’d like to think is a good thing). Number two is that I need to start viewing my self as much more fortunate then previously thought, due to the fact that I don’t really have that many people in my life that need forgiving (on the grand scale this assignment seems to be referring to).
As I began to reflect on whom I might want to try this forgiveness exercise out on I found it extremely hard to pick anyone at all. I suppose this means I’ve been really blessed throughout my life. When I tried to think of people that had transgressed upon me in some way or another the types of situation I came up with were so minor that I realized I had gone through this forgiveness process almost instantly.
For example: Last week when I was closing down the restaurant I work at I ask a cretin member of our staff to make sure that the bathrooms got cleaned before he left. I told him I didn’t care if he had some one else do it just as long as it got done. Right before I was about to shut off all the lights the owner informed me that it appeared that the bathrooms had not been cleaned. This ment that I would need to clean the bathrooms on top of all the other work I had just done.
While I was cleaning the bathrooms I was upset that what I had asked of my co-worker had been ignored. By the time I got home, made a drink, and sat down to enjoy it my frustration with the situation had vanished. The next day I saw the co-worker who had ignored his duties and made mention of the fact that it wasn’t that big of a deal but that from now on I’d be checking to make sure that these types of things were done before he could leave. After that he apologized and I can’t say I’ve thought about the incident until now.
Life is full of little transgressions like I mentioned above. I think its safe to say that for instances such as these the forgiveness process is fairly quick and painless. There have been times in my life where I have had to struggle with forgiveness where the act I was being ask to forgive was something much more sever then forgetting to clean a bathroom. Fortunately for me all those instances were years ago. I really enjoyed this activity, it helped me to gain a much clearer understanding of the process of forgiveness and as I said before it allowed me to realize how fortunate I’ve been.
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