I. Forgiveness
Some people can give a list of all the ones that had a hand in why they’re not where they would be or should be. I don’t. I would recognize them and they would not be allowed to be around me and that’s about it. I have a theory about forgiveness and it’s simple. Some people in the world make terrible mistakes, and when they do you can tell because they won’t ever make that mistake again. Other people make decisions that they claim are mistakes. I see decisions like, an assault on a person for what they have and what the person committing the assault wants. It’s not the most common thing in the world to assault someone. In an assault, a person is exerting their physical strength over another and not necessarily someone that is their size. This takes X amount of work and strategy. I see an assault as not a mistake but a decision. Forgiveness can hardly follow a decision. There is the notion of a bad decision. Sure, we turn down the wrong road, bad decision. We make a terrible joke at the wrong time, bad decision. We use or take something that isn’t ours, bad decision. Forgiveness can follow these types of decisions easily. But when it comes to certain bad decisions, the decision to shoot someone to death or that whole assault business just mentioned, those things aren’t very forgivable. The decision that was made was a poor one, but it was also a very brutal and quite inhumane one that effected people’s lives in possibly permanently damaging ways. Take the instance of sexual assault or abuse on a child. A lot of people say, the assaulter or abuser have a mental issue there is no known cure for, or they don’t know any better due to their upbringing, or they made a mistake. Don’t kill them for what they did to the child or the person. Others say, yes, kill them for what they did to the child or person. Others say, just lock them away and throw away the key. Assault, whether it be sexual or not, will stay with you for the rest of your life. It is one of those deafening experiences, like hurricane winds slamming into your house and you sitting in the dark with your family hoping the house doesn’t buckle under the pressure or a car hitting you as you drive.
Just this year I was involved in a hit and run. We were on a two-lane one-way, and a person rushed to get by me as I signaled and went to get into the lane I wanted to turn on. The car hit my fender, knocked the bumper a little ways off and the grill off. My vehicle is a 1991 Jeep Laredo. There was no harm at all to the actual Jeep, meaning the underlying main parts, like the engine, axle, radiator, and so forth, but for sure, the vehicle that hit it is busted. This whole incident did cause me to have to buy another fender, fender flare, bumper, bumper bracket, grill, right driver signal light, and so forth. And I’m ever so handy, so I put these on with a little help from my cousin. In all cases, from here on out, I find myself, whenever I am turning to go down a road, checking my side view mirrors because someone may be in some kind of hurry and possibly driving up to whisk pass me. This incident is still with me. It was a bit of hell trying to get the damn fender off. Putting it on was the easy part.
Overall, the incident stays with me, as does assault with a lot of people. Assault and my incident, as well as experiences in my youth, affect trust, in a negative way. It can make one mean, affect one’s patience and tolerance, and isolate a person, causing one to be cold toward their fellow human being. It creates an internal struggle within oneself that can affect one’s progression in the world. I think forgiveness is based on a person’s economic situation. Some people are doing way better and don’t have too much to worry about in life or be wary of, so they may find it easier to forgive. Others aren’t so fortunate, and because of that they may find it hard to forgive. I’ve seen people forgive others for the most horrible things they have done to them or someone they love and I have nothing bad to say about that. In this oddity in the world’s theory, forgiveness is strictly personally conditional. For me, forgiveness is hard to give with regard to all my situations in life because people did not make mistakes, they made a decision to do what they did and to set tribulation on my path, so I do not give it. However, condemnation of them is not here or given either. They aren’t forgotten but they aren’t remembered either. They’re not worth the mental space. Not worth acknowledgement. They are neither a good lesson, bad lesson, or any lesson at all. They’re just this thing that happened to me, that never had to happen, amongst all the other annoying and insignificant things that happened to me in this life. For me, just because someone is forgiven doesn’t mean I will have peace and move forward. I was always moving forward even all those years ago when it happened in the first place and I had no peace for a time. They are at most put out of my mind because they are a waste of time. I don’t want to see them and they deserve to be forgotten. I don’t think the world would be a better place if people could easily forgive. I think the world would be a better place if people were more considerate and respectful of each other.