Many people I know are very embarrassed and ashamed about the kind of person they were in the past. Maybe at a time they were going through something nobody knew about, or maybe they were just ignorant, or immature, or didn't know any better.
Out of the people I know who have told me how ashamed they were of who they were at another points in time when I knew them, I can confirm that in my eyes none of them nearly were as bad as they think they were.
We were all young and dumb at one point.
But what if you think you were the absolute worst, and nothing could or nobody would convince you otherwise?
Maybe you were the worst.
If you really were the worst, be living proof that even the worst can change.
As long as peoples' bad memories of you are no longer reflective of who you are now, I believe you have the potential to make up for it with good in the world. You might not run into them again, but as you keep living differently, treating all those around you now well, I believe you can be redeemed. Because the people you know now have bad memories of other peoples they won't see again, so you can make up for theirs, and somebody else can make up for yours.
You are a perfect stranger to so many people, and they are strangers to you. Everybody has made mistakes others know about, and others don't know about.
But if you do run into them, those people who would remember you badly, maybe in a short moment they will be able to learn that even the worst can change, which is a powerful lesson. And if they refuse to see that, if they refuse to forgive, then the problem no longer lies with you but with them, for they too have made mistakes.
I write all this because I have felt what it's like to want to forget the kind of person I Was, and to forget people who hurt me. Sometimes I am so ashamed of the kind of person I was, of my faults, and embarrassed of their outcomes, and seek redemption. Yet when I run into old friends they usually treat me so much more kindly than I feel I deserve, and I really appreciate that.
But I also am a person people might want forgiveness from. I was bullied, quite harshly by some. It did its damage, and I have a lot I could be very resentful about.
To this day, I hate the colour green. If you bullied me, you might understand why. I'm not going to lie to you and say it didn't do its damage.
But I'd want you to know that I forgive you for it. You are free to forgive yourself as long as you put those actions in the past and leave them there, an don't let them come back and touch anyone else.
Because we all need forgiveness, and to change.
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