CHRIS COMPTON — @TWAININGWHEELS|KINGSLEY ASUAMAH
Life From Different Perspectives:
Part 11 of 20: The art of NOT holding a grudge - Forgiveness benefits you more than the other person
This article is part of a series of articles written from the perspectives of two very different minds.
My name is Chris Compton. I am a 59-year-old American living in Atlanta, GA. I am writing about the 20 self-improvement facts in this article:
The article’s author, Kingsley Asuamah, is a 36-year-old Nigerian living in Ireland. He is writing about the same topics.
You can follow along and see how two strangers, separated by age, geography, and circumstance, view the world and the opportunity to develop as human beings.
The Horrible Thing About Grudges (is grudges are horrible things)
Much like wrinkles, debt, and bamboo, grudges tend to accumulate. Every grudge comes factory-equipped with the worst feature currently available: obligation.
Once we form a grudge and acknowledge its existence, we are obligated to harbor it. Holding a grudge is hard work. We have to be angry, or at least annoyed, at the target of our derision. This is not a temporary or part-time obligation. If their name comes up at any time, for any reason, it is incumbent upon us to wrinkle our noses at a minimum. A disparaging remark is accepted custom. We must feel offended any time we are in their presence or even in the presence of someone who mentions them. Our obligation to react negatively cannot be relieved until the grudge is discharged.
Grudges can only be discharged in two ways: either the holder of the grudge forgives the offender, or the offender dies. A grudge is a serious undertaking.
Where do Grudges Come From?
In its simplest form, a grudge starts with disappointment. Someone let you down. They failed to live up to your expectations, or they didn’t honor your relationship. They hurt your feelings, or maybe they even caused serious injury. Whatever it was, they can go fuck themselves.
We all set expectations, and our expectations extend to the behavior of other people. When these expectations go unmet, we have to deal with disappointment.
There are many healthy ways to deal with disappointment. Often, the offender is unaware that they have let us down. A simple conversation can go a long way towards repairing the damage and ensuring that everyone is on the same page in the future. By talking about the situation, we learn about the other person’s perspective. We gain some insight into their reasoning. We may come away from the encounter with an understanding that allows us to accept the results, even though we are still disappointed.
Sadly, we don’t deal with every situation in the healthiest way. Far more often, we avoid talking about it because we fear confrontation. We make assumptions about the other person’s knowledge, ability, and motivation. These assumptions may not have any basis in fact, but they become our truth.
If we believe that someone took advantage of us, neglected our interests, or shirked his responsibilities and caused us pain or distress, we may hold a grudge.
The Best Way to Deal With Grudges is Not to Form Grudges
If we know that we will be disappointed when other people don’t meet our expectations and that we have complete control over those expectations, the solution seems obvious. We can avoid disappointment by setting reasonable expectations.
I urge you to work on this. Life is frustrating enough. Think about the last time you looked forward to an outdoor activity for months only to wake up to cloudy skies and a gloomy forecast. “Why does this always happen to me?” you may have thought. You know that you can’t control the weather. You know that you can’t control what time Gertrude will pick you up. But you still set expectations, and you still suffer disappointments when they aren’t met.
Setting realistic expectations will minimize unnecessary disappointments in your life. This one simple step will reduce your opportunities to form grudges and raise your happiness level all by itself. But what should you do when you find yourself harboring a grudge?
Resetting Your Expectations Will Not Eliminate Disappointment
You took my advice and adjusted your expectations. You lightened up. You stopped getting upset when your friends were late or canceled on you. You didn’t let a little bit of rain ruin your day off. You even gave yourself a break when you forgot to buy your boyfriend an anniversary card. Great work!
Setting reasonable expectations is not the same as having no expectations at all, and people will occasionally fail the test of reasonableness. When they do, you are probably going to get upset about it, and that incident will form the beginning of a grudge.
If your son borrows the car and backs it into another car because he was distracted by a TikTok video, you’re going to be angry with him. You will have a hard time loaning him your car or trusting him in general until you move past the disappointment.
If your friend gets drunk and calls you a nasty name, it’s going to sting. Your opinion of him will be affected. Until you get over the hurt, your relationship won’t be the same.
Despite your best efforts to temper your expectations, every day will bring new frustrations. People are imperfect and, moreover, are focused on their own aspirations, which may not align with yours.
Most of the time, your friends and loved ones are blissfully unaware of your expectations. As a result, they have no clue that they let you down. The only person truly affected by your disappointment is you.
“People have to forgive. We don’t have to like them, we don’t have to be friends with them, we don’t have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. Because if we don’t we are tying rocks to our feet, too much for our wings to carry!” ― C. JoyBell C.
Holding On to Negative Feelings Can Be Crippling
Being angry is hard work.
Many people keep careful track of the many ways you have let them down. They bring up past incidents, reminding you that you better be on your “Ps and Qs” this time. They keep a running tally.
Don’t do that. Imagine the time it takes to ruminate on every perceived injustice properly, commit the details to memory, develop appropriate stories for public consumption, and be able to deliver them whenever an appropriate opportunity arises.
Imagine the emotional energy required to harbor this resentment around the clock. Think about all of the little things that go wrong every single day and how quickly these incidents add up. It’s overwhelming. It’s a wonder these people can get out of bed every day and face a life so full of disappointment in their circle of friends.
There is a better way.
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Forgiveness is a Gift You Give to Yourself Disguised as a Gift for Another Person
That brings us to forgiveness. Forgiveness is simply the act of letting go.
When someone lets you down, you get to decide how to respond. Your response can range from “no worries” to vowing to hunt them down and torture them.
Most people spend way too much time feeling victimized. Over time, the role becomes familiar and comfortable. Eventually, it becomes the part they were born to play.
When you forgive someone, you are releasing them from any guilt, shame, or debt that they incurred when they let you down. You are saying, “I understand. You made a mistake — we all make them. Let’s move on.” You are offering a relationship reset. Being forgiven is a great thing.
As good as it is to be forgiven, it pales in comparison to the benefits received by the forgiver.
When you forgive someone else, you don’t have to think about the transgression anymore. This saves you precious time and emotional energy. You can stop wondering if this relationship is “worth it” and get back to enjoying the relationship. You don’t have to keep a mental scoresheet. You don’t have to look for chances to remind them of their failures. You can stop wallowing in your victimhood and stop living in the past.
Forgiveness is your ticket to living in the present, and the present is all there is.
Applying These Lessons in Your Day-to-Day Life
Holding a grudge is hard work. You have to be on constant alert, ready to be offended at the mere mention of their name. If you still associate with the offender, you need a whole different set of social skills to call on when they are in your presence. You have to be just receptive enough to carry out the social activity du jour yet closed off enough that they can’t relax and forget that you are angry with them. It’s akin to walking a tightrope without a net, risking your happiness and the relationship with every measured step.
Here are 3 things that you can do that will pay big dividends in the form of time and emotional energy.
- Forgive the small stuff immediately and without comment. No matter what.
You’re having a great time with your girlfriend at a club. You come out of the bathroom, and she is talking to a guy you’ve never seen before. Your heart rate speeds up, your cheeks flush, and you clench your fists. The night is ruined.
You’ve been looking forward to the concert for months. He picks you up right on time. You look resplendent in your new dress and boots. Pulling away from your house, he looks at you and says, “You look fantastic!” While he is looking at you, he fails to see the car stopping in front of him. WHAM! Even at this slow speed, the bumper crumbles. No one is hurt, but by the time the police and tow trucks have left, the concert is well under way. You are devastated.
You are at the state fair with all your friends. You walk past the “Guess Your Weight” booth, and one of your friends shouts out, “Guess her’s!” The carny shouts out a number twenty pounds higher than your actual weight, which is twenty pounds higher than you wish. You want to crawl into a hole and die.
All of these situations are unfortunate. None of them are permanent. If your girlfriend is committed, who cares who she talks to? Accidents happen, and no matter how embarrassed you are about the weight comment, you weigh what you weigh. Your body is barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to who you actually are.
Train yourself to smile on command. Plaster a smile on your face and get back to the day. There is no need to talk about these issues in the moment. You can’t go back in time and change what happened. What you can do is silently forgive the offender and let that be the end of it. You’ve salvaged the day. You’ve discharged your obligation to carry the weight of disappointment around until you can deal with it by just forgetting about it.
If you want to talk about it later, do it with kindness, humor, and honesty, but make it very clear that you have already moved past the incident.
2. If you plan to continue your relationship with someone who has offended you, start the healing progress immediately and move to forgiveness as quickly as possible.
Your husband of 11 years has been sleeping with other people. While he was taking a shower, his cell phone rang. You picked it up and saw “Naughty Nancy” on the screen. When you confronted him about it, he very quickly admitted to not just one but a number of transgressions over the years. You are reeling.
Your grandfather set aside some money for you in an account that he set up in your dad’s name. He told you about it shortly before he died when you were twelve years old. You were counting on the money to help you with your college expenses. Six years later, you asked your dad for the money, and he confessed that he had spent it a few years ago when he was between jobs. You are so upset you can’t speak.
You tell your mom that you had an abortion. She freaks out. You’ve never seen her so upset. She cries, screams, and curses. She tells you that you are going to hell and calls you a murderer. She says she doesn’t even know you anymore. You were already struggling emotionally. The entire situation is like a wet blanket, and you can hardly breathe.
These are difficult situations. Life can be challenging. There is no comprehensive guide to every situation that arises. We learned most of our basic life skills from parents who learned from their own parents. Follow the trail back a few generations, and you’ll find mentors without indoor plumbing. Misguided or not, your parents are part of your life. One way or another, you need to find a way to move forward. The way forward starts with you.
Even when you are certain that the pain you are feeling can be directly attributed to your mother and there is no excuse for her behavior, you should forgive her (or him as the case may be.)
“Wait a minute,” I hear you screaming, “I’m not forgiving her. I’ll never get over this pain. She has ruined my life.”
As difficult as it is, forgiveness is your best option. If you don’t forgive her (or him), you are in for even more pain. Life is hard enough without trying to manage a close relationship and hold a grudge against the other person in the relationship at the same time. You can’t freely exchange love with someone you are angry at. Love and anger are enormous. There isn’t enough room for them both in your relationship.
If you are not going to end the relationship, it is inevitable that you forgive as quickly as possible. Every day that you wait is a day you cannot get back. Every bad thought you harbor prevents an equally joyous thought from forming.
In the heat of the moment, we often say the first thing that occurs to us. That instinct is often hateful, hurtful, judgmental, and likely to inflict emotional pain. You have done it yourself, and you will do it again because you are a human being, and we are all flawed. Don’t drag your father, your mother, your spouse, a dear friend, a sibling, or anyone else you intend to care about again one day through the muck and mire, but even more importantly, don’t enter the swamp yourself. It will suck the life and love right out of you, and both life and love are precious and irreplaceable.
Swallow your pride. Speak your piece truthfully, respectfully, and as kindly as possible. Say that you are hurt. Say that you will have a difficult time forgetting about it. Seek to be heard. Then, forgive completely and permanently and get back to living and loving.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” — Jesus Christ
3. If the offender is outside of your normal circle, forgive them as quickly as possible, regardless of the magnitude of the offense.
Life is full of disappointment. Many times, we are disappointed by people close to us, but occasionally, life deals us a blow delivered by someone we have never even seen before.
A drunk driver crosses the median and hits your brother’s car head-on. The offender is unscathed. Your brother dies on the operating table, leaving behind a wife and two small children with no insurance and few resources. You open your home to them. All of your lives have changed forever in the blink of an eye.
You could spend the rest of your life with this incident in the forefront of your mind. You could lie awake at night thinking about the unfairness of the situation and wishing horrible misfortune upon the drunk driver. You could make a point of attending every minute of the trial, recruiting friends and relatives to demonstrate outside the courthouse, and drawing as much attention as possible to the case. You could confront his relatives and ask them how they could possibly live with themselves after what he did to your family. You could hammer hate into the minds of your niece and nephew and preach caution above all else as the way to approach life.
Many people faced with this situation do exactly that. What do they gain? Nothing changes. Your brother is still dead. No prison sentence or apology is going to bring him back. Your actions are holding you emotionally hostage and imprisoning your sister-in-law and her children in a cell of hatred, blame, and despair.
As hard as it seems, the decision is quite simple. Forgive this person you never knew before and will likely never encounter again. Only by forgiving them can you move forward. You can remember your brother for all of the kindness and love he brought into the world rather than obscuring his memory with the machinations of this tragedy.
You are in complete control of issuing forgiveness. Like love and directions, forgiveness is unlimited. You can forgive everyone on the planet twice a day for the rest of your life and still have more forgiveness in your storage closet for an emergency. The only limitation is your pride and sense of justice. Do what creates the best situation for you, and remember that forgiving the offender ALWAYS creates a better situation than holding a grudge.
Five Forgiveness Facts to Take Away
- When you forgive someone, you free yourself from the obligations to be angry, keep score, retaliate, or even remember the incident. Your time and emotional energy are precious resources that holding a grudge taxes heavily. Forgiveness eliminates this tax.
- “Forgive and Forget” is not an automatic pairing. You may think, “I could never forget what this person did to me, so I can’t forgive them.” This is not true! You can forgive without forgetting. As time passes, the incident will slowly recede from the forefront of your mind. You will find yourself obsessing about it less and less. Eventually, you will rarely think about it. If you don’t forgive, this process will take much, much longer.
- You don’t have to do anything formal to facilitate forgiveness. You don’t even have to tell the person you are forgiving. You simply have to commit to forgiving them. Remember, you are doing this for your own benefit. If you are forgiving someone you intend to maintain a close relationship with, a conversation and a face to face, “I forgive you,” along with setting some expectations about the future is advisable, but silent forgiveness is much better for you than any sort of grudge.
- Grudges are expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally draining. Other people are inevitably involved, further complicating the situation. When managed poorly, grudges can quickly spill over into feuds, which are even worse. Forgiveness is free. You never lose the ability to forgive.
- Grudges are often anonymous. Think about the drunk driver example. Many lives were affected by the driver’s negligence. Many people have an opportunity to form a grudge and hold onto it for a lifetime. The driver does not know these people. He has his own cross to bear, but the grudges held by people he doesn’t have a relationship with don’t affect his life at all. Zero. Nada. Why ruin your emotional health by hating someone who doesn’t even know you exist? Forgive him and use the recovered emotional resources to help your family heal.
You are going to get hurt in life. Over and over again. Don’t make it worse. Forgive and move on. Life is too short to cripple yourself, hoping to hold someone accountable.