There Is No Peace Without Forgiveness

Think, for a moment, about the emotions and feelings you experience after someone does wrong by you, deceives you, undermines you, ridicules you, belittles you, criticizes you, defames you, or breaks your trust. After such an experience, naturally we feel hurt, upset, frustrated, sad, pained, unloved, betrayed, unappreciated, and quite often angry. For so many of us, when someone inflicts such emotional pain and hurt upon us, our first instinct is to fight back and emotionally hurt them in return. Sadly, many people unfortunately even resort to physical violence, as they completely lack will power, restraint, and mental control. What's the last thing we often find ourselves thinking about though, when someone is inflicting emotional pain and hurt upon us? Forgiveness! Here is this individual making us feel like crap, making our life difficult, making circumstances inconvenient for us, and making us feel worthless, and yet, how is it that the wisest thing for us to do in response is to be forgiving them for their actions? Forgiveness has to be undoubtedly one of the hardest actions to do in life. To let someone hurt and pain us, only to then sit back, accept it, forgive them for their actions, and move on, hardly seems a fair response. I admit, it does sound silly doesn't it, because we naturally believe that if someone is as low and disrespectful enough to pain and hurt us in some manner, then it would only be justice that they receive the same treatment in return. Humans are sticklers for revenge. So many of us love finding a way that we can inflict hurt and pain back on them, but in doing so, all we are doing is being just as low and disrespectful as they are. We are sinking ourselves down to their standard, and yet we have the audacity to accuse them of being rude, immature, and nasty. Then I suppose we resort back to the good old "well they started it" reaction. So they did, but what so many of us fail to realize is that the most ultimate revenge on someone is to actually walk away, ignore them, and forgive them.

How often do we see in school yards and various sports, where one individual antagonizes another individual, perhaps striking them in some manner, which then prompts the recipient of the antagonization or strike to respond with aggression and frustration, only to find that they are the ones to then get punished for it? It happens so often! It's a classic example that two wrongs don't make a right, and retaliation is the worse response we can give in return, be it in the school yard, in sport, or in any aspect of life. Trust me, I know it really sucks, because you're left there to cop this unfair, and often unjust, treatment that someone has imposed and you, only to witness them walk away with great satisfaction, and to get away with indecency. You're left to bear the brunt of hurt, pain, and suffering, whilst life seems to be rewarding them for their disgusting actions and unacceptable behavior. As hard as it may be to accept though, we need to understand that it's not a competition, it's not about who can inflict the most hurt on who. It's about taking the higher road, and being the bigger person. If it peeves you to think they get away with their disgraceful actions and behavior, you need not worry about that. Just as life has a way with rewarding those who are generous, kind, and compassionate to others, life also has a way of punishing those who do wrong by others also. We have the opportunity to relinquish ourselves of the negativity and degradation that comes with revenge, because life will always end up doing it for us. The hardest part to accept is that we may never get to witness it, and for many of us, we long for that opportunity to see revenge in full flight, just to feel satisfied and avenged, yet we are more than often left to feel hard done by, because we don't get to witness it. Guaranteed though, it does happen, and the perpetrator will always do whatever it takes to conceal their time of hurt and pain from us anyway, because they don't want to give us that satisfaction in knowing. We need to find peace within ourselves though, because if we are focusing our attention on vengeance, it means we are distracting ourselves from far more important things in life, such as our goals, our happiness, our family, and our future. Not only this, but seeking vengeance, and hoping for pain, suffering, hurt, hardship, and the like, on others doesn't exactly give credibility to our character.

Inner peace and happiness are two blessings we would all love in life, yet we cannot gain either of those if we are spending our days plotting revenge against, or feeling a great dislike or hatred towards, those who have wronged us. The only way we can find that inner peace and happiness is to forgive those who do transgress against us. Let it go, move on, and focus on things that actually truly matter in life. Leave karma in charge of those who wrong you, and concentrate on designing a life blessed with happiness, success, satisfaction, prosperity, and of course, inner peace. That is revenge at its finest! Forgiveness leads to healthier relationships with others, lower blood pressure, relief from depression, improved self-esteem, stress reduction, and an overall improvement on mental health. It's even been identified that forgiveness can even lessen the risk of heart attack, whilst improving cholesterol levels. Forgiveness is about trading in the negative emotions of anger, resentment, bitterness, and vengefulness, which all lead to negative outcomes, for positive emotions such as happiness, empathy, and love, which all lead to positive results. At the end of the day, we need to remember that we are all human, and we all make mistakes. Sure, some mistakes are bigger than others, and sure, people's mistakes can cause us great suffering, hurt, and pain, but we make mistakes against others also, be them intentional or unintentional. How would it make us feel if someone refuses to forgive us, especially if they are someone we love? We can't expect others to forgive us if we cannot forgive others. Life is too short to hold grudges and be wasting precious time and energy plotting revenge against others. Find that inner peace you deserve in life through forgiveness, and focus on creating a life enriched with success, happiness, and prosperity.

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