Why you should forgive those who least deserve it

Our generation (the tail-end millennials/early gen z) is not one to promote forgiveness. We really don’t admire kindness or emotional decency at all. We’re more of a “ghost so we don’t have to deal with the aftermath” group of people. It’s horrible, to say the least. The way we treat each other is despicable and lacks all sorts of remorse and decency. So, to discuss a topic such as forgiveness, which requires actual emotional awareness and intelligence to an audience of this age group seems futile. However, it’s important to remind the small decent majority that sometimes we have to be the bigger person in life, for our own benefit. 

Living in this age of poor communication skills and the blatant lack of empathy, we tend to find ourselves in rough situations with our peers more often than we’d like. Romantic encounters have a new language and harsh existence compared to the older generations. A lot of young people nowadays don’t value respect and courtesy when it comes their courtships. This tends to lead to many failed relationship attempts and the inevitable heartache. It’s easy for us to become bitter and angry at those who have hurt us, especially when they do so in such a disrespectful manner these days such as ghosting. Regardless of how it’s done, heartbreak sucks. It can leave us scarred and feeling lost for months. It can cause us to feel all forms of negative emotions towards the perpetrators that stomped on our hearts. And while we all love to blast a good break up song and sing along with a scary amount of relatable passion from our recent heartache, it’s usually better to let go of those emotions after some time. But how do you let go of these hurt feelings? By forgiving.

When we think of forgiveness, we tend to think that means giving the person another chance. While it can, I am by no means supporting opening the door back up to someone who blatantly chose to hurt and disrespect you. This type of forgiveness I promote isn’t for them, it’s for us. When we choose to forgive someone, especially someone who hasn’t done anything to try and earn that forgiveness, we are choosing to let go of what they did. We are choosing to put the trauma behind us. To no longer allow it to control us. We make a conscious choose to say “what they did sucks and it hurts but I will no longer let them take anymore of my life away from me”. Putting the former pain and memories behind you and turning the page requires us to let go of the attachment and negative feelings we link to what was done to us. 

It’s not an easy task to forgive when you haven’t been given an apology or reason to. It requires putting our pride aside. It requires a new strength we may not have had to harness before. It’s not always easy, and sometimes it will take practice. Sometimes you’ll think you’ve forgiven them and moved past the torment, but you haven’t. Sometimes it will come back in waves. That’s heartbreak and that’s normal. But holding onto the pain, the suffering, the anger and resentment towards your ex will only stunt our growth. It will hold us back from moving forward with our lives. Ultimately, it only hurts us. When we hold on to anger towards someone who has completely moved on, we’re only poisoning ourselves. When we learn to release those negative emotions we make room for new ones such as positive feelings and positive change. You can’t move forward if you’re too busy letting the past consume you. Forgive them for yourself even when they don’t deserve it. You deserve the freedom.