I'm 33 years old. I've been alive for 12,193 days. Ample time for people to rough me up physically, emotionally, mentally, or any other way they may have been able to dig in a proverbial knife. I remember everything - mostly. I can see their faces, hear their voices, even imagine placing myself in the same situations, and coming out the other end, worse for it.
Many religions and other creeds claim that a person needs to forgive. Some even go further and say to forget. Wise people attribute their longevity and lack of poor health to a lack of holding in the hurt from their past. But is that just a misplacement of cause and effect?
I mean...does a person really need to forgive someone who hurt them? Or, can they just use it as a learning mechanism, feel the pain, know what they don't like, and never allow that to happen again?
This throws out the notion of "forgetting," which I think is unhealthy anyway. Otherwise, you're throwing caution to the wind, allowing the victimizer to mess you up again.
What say you?
