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Happy Birthday, Billy!

On Forgiving Ourselves

By Mark AbukoffPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Remember Frosty the Snowman? Every time that hat landed on his head he’d say “Happy Birthday!” I like the idea of celebrating every awakening as a birthday of sorts. Try to keep that in mind as I tell you about a friend of mine. I had a conversation with someone a few days ago, who on the condition of anonymity agreed to let me share his story. I'll call him Billy (not his real name). Billy began the conversation with a stark statement. He said that everything he had ever touched in his life until just recently had turned to c_ _ p. He related several incidents spanning decades of adult life that included careless accidents, mistakes, a few actions taken in panic. There were a few things that he admitted were wrong but done without greed or malice, but simply because he gave way to temptation. He was weak. He made no excuses for his actions, but he has admitted to doing wrong and has paid for what he's done. But he also keeps it in mind. While any others involved have closed the file, as it were, he hasn't. So Billy keeps a list of sorts of things he's done wrong in his life. Everyone makes mistakes, I said. We all do things wrong. We all do things we regret. Sometimes we give in to temptation because we are all weak. But we also all do things right. I asked him to tell me what he thought he'd done right. He thought for a few minutes and told me that when he was much younger he'd introduced two people who had gotten married and had recently celebrated their twentieth anniversary. But, he said, he couldn't think of anything else. Well, first off, I said, not everyone can say that. He has given two people an opportunity for 20+ years of happiness. Every day they wake up with something to celebrate is thanks in part to him. Every anniversary card exchanged has his name somewhere behind it. So he should feel very good about that. Something else about Billy is that he has pets, and every day that those pets have love and shelter and food, he's done something right. Our good deeds aren't always as dramatic and memorable as our mistakes. It is easy to think, especially if we are decent people with a conscience, that we are more defined by what we do wrong than by what we do right. I told Billy that he was right to be aware of what he'd done wrong. To regret being weak and dishonest, and to face whatever consequences there were. But I also told him that once he'd done that- once he's apologized to everyone he needed to and reformed himself and really, really changed, then it was time to move on. Learning from our mistakes is important, and true, missteps and lapses in judgement should be remembered so that they aren't repeated, but once a wound has healed, no good is served by cutting it open again. Just remember how it happened the first time. In the series premiere of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Benjamin Sisko doesn't understand why wormhole aliens seem to keep returning him to the time and place of his wife's death in battle against the Borg. He asks them why, and they basically tell him that he has never left that moment (I don't recall the exact line). Sisko finally came to realize that he kept seeing it because he hadn't allowed himself to move on emotionally from that point. Billy has been doing the same thing on a number of issues, and I told him that he had to give himself permission to leave all of those scenes behind. Everyone else has forgiven him. It's time for him to forgive himself.

So yes, Billy is a good guy, and I think that all of us have a bit of Billy in us. I have a large share. But I think that we would do well and be happier to see that in the people around us, especially those that maybe we don't see eye to eye with. And maybe part of what we see as a problem with them is the fact that they're still learning to do what Billy has finally managed. It's not a new message that everyone is fighting a battle of some kind. Even the people we don't agree with. If you give them a bit of leeway and forgiveness, you just might find that they respond well. And in any case, it never hurts to forgive.

happiness
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About the Creator

Mark Abukoff

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