Tagged: “forgiveness”
What is the difference between transcending your anger and forgiving?
When we forgive, we do more than transcend our anger. Forgiveness, as a moral virtue, centers on the person who did wrong to you. You can transcend your anger, for example, by trying to forget about the whole situation, or even by trying to forget about the one who acted unfairly. This is not forgiveness, which is a deliberate choice of being good to those who are not good to you. You can transcend your anger without deliberately trying to be good to the other person.
My friend feels that I’ve hurt her feelings by something that I said. I’m not on board. In other words, I have carefully examined the situation and I truly think that I said nothing egregious, nothing wrong, not even with my tone of voice. Now, she is requesting an apology. She’s threatening to permanently leave my life if I don’t agree. In spite of this conflict, I would rather that not occur. How should I proceed? I really don’t think that I should apologize, given I did no wrong, but should I still?
Choosing between friendship and the truth is a big decision. I advise you to select both. “I am sorry that you were hurt by what I said [then specify the issue],” is how I would honestly address the situation if I were in your shoes.
I’m assuming you wish, whatever it was she believes you did to her, didn’t hurt her. You would be acknowledging this. . You’re not expressing regret for a supposed injustice that you say you did not commit.
It is kind of like some people are on repeat. They keep proclaiming that to forgive is a sign of weakness. How would you respond to that?
Here is an excerpt from my book, The Forgiving Life, that addresses this question:
“Many people are hesitant, even afraid, to forgive because they fear that the other will take advantage of them. Forgiveness is for wimps, I have heard many times. Yet, is that true? Is the offer of goodness, true goodness, extended from a position of your own pain, ever done in weakness? How can one offer goodness through a position of pain and see it as weak? And see the giver of this goodness as weak? My point is this: We all may need to delve more deeply into what forgiveness is so that we can make the best decisions possible for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the ones who hurt us.”
Excerpt from Chapter 3 of The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love by Dr. Robert Enright.
What happens if I repeatedly extend kindness and forgiveness to someone and the person chooses not to accept it? I feel like this is an opportunity for the other to exploit me. It’s also a chance for me to exhaust myself by being kind without expecting anything in return from the other. How do you respond to my ideas?
Your question is important because, barring some crucial clarifications, you might exhaust yourself and it wouldn’t be true forgiveness. Let’s talk about the situation first—you offering forgiveness and the other refusing it. Assume you were practicing the virtue of justice rather than forgiveness, and whenever you treat someone fairly, this person responds unfairly to you. Would you cease to be just because of this? Would you, for instance, begin to act unfairly? No, you would not give up on the moral virtue of justice. Why? Being fair, even when others are not, is good in and of itself. The same holds true when forgiving someone. Even in the face of unmerciful actions from other people all around us, your showing mercy is a good thing in and of itself.
Moving on to the second point: exhausting oneself. It is possible to forgive someone from a distance without having to make amends if the person consistently takes advantage of you. Put another way, extend forgiveness, but afterward, give serious thought to what is fair and reasonable to bring both of you back together again.
When “forgiveness” is not forgiveness
We recently did an Internet search in which we typed in the term “forgiveness in the news.” On the first page there were 13 entries. Of those 13, 12 were about “student loan forgiveness.” This is a term that has been used for years within the media. We at the International Forgiveness Institute would like to clarify an important issue. “Student loan forgiveness” is not the correct term for the following reasons:
Image by Pexels.com
- To forgive means that the one forgiven has done something morally wrong, but the students did not act unjustly as they engaged in the proper procedures to secure those loans.
- There is a difference between a legal pardon and forgiveness. When there is legal pardon, there is mercy shown, in this case by exonerating the students from paying back the loans or at least part of those loans. Yet, the ones exonerating are not personally hurt by the students and so they are not engaging in forgiving the students.
The proper term would be “student loan pardons.” This would be more accurate and not lead people to inadvertently distort the meaning of the word “forgiveness.”
