Why Forgiving And Forgetting Can Sometimes Be The Best Plan Of Action

Oscar Wilde once said, “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.” How true is that? It isn’t really forgiving and forgetting in the true religious meaning of the words, but it is still effective.

People can live their entire lives with a chip on their shoulder. People can also go for years waiting for an opportunity to exact revenge. People can plan and plot and wait for their enemy to turn their back so they can attack. All the while, they are wasting their time on someone who probably doesn’t even recognize their anger.

Life really is too short to carry on the burden of someone else’s problem. By forgiving, you are acknowledging that the other person has made a mistake and it is over. Maybe it was intentional, or maybe it wasn’t, but they are human just like us. And guess what? We all make mistakes.

By forgetting – usually the hardest part – we allow ourselves to move on. Of course we never really do forget, we just move the memory of the pain we endured to a more distant part of our mind. We might bring it up from time to time, but we choose not to live with it on an everyday basis.

If you are a religious person, no doubt your religion asks you to forgive others, just as we ask forgiveness from our God. By carrying around vengeful feelings, and not forgiving and forgetting, you are asking God to do something for you that you are unable to do for another human being.

As Isabelle Holland said, “As long as you don’t forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind.” By forgiving someone and moving on, you can free up that space for more productive, positive thinking.