A young friend of mine called me late last night. He grew up here in Westminster, but moved out-of-state a few years ago. We keep in touch and talk about once a month.
He wanted to talk because he had gotten himself into a very tough situation due to some poor choices he’d made.
Mainly, he was mad at himself. Not even twenty-one yet, he’ll be affected by the decision he made for the rest of his life.
I told him he needed to begin the process of forgiving himself. Not an easy thing to do when it comes to serious matters, but necessary.
I don’t know how it is for you, but I find it a whole lot easier to forgive someone else than to forgive myself. The issue with that is that you carry it around with you all the time. It affects every other relationship you have, and I don’t think it’s especially healthy.
I was thinking the other day how stupid I was to have sold all my investments (not that it amounted to a whole lot) in my mid-twenties and used the proceeds to pay for grad school. Had I kept that money where it was, my retirement planning would be going a whole lot better right now. But I did what I did, and it’s time to move on.
My young friend wants it all to go away so he can get back to just being an easy-going twenty-year old. Instead of trying to find something positive (there are many) in his situation, he’s totally focused on negative.
Forgiveness, especially of yourself, can be really difficult. But once you make the decision to do so, you can get back to genuine living. Is there really anything stopping us?
