Forgive Yourself

You think you know who you are, what you SHOULD do or WOULD do, but you do not. Not yet, and likely not ever. But that's okay. You're human.

Oct 06, 2023

What Is A Dad?

A dad is someone who wants to catch you before you fall but instead picks you up and brushes you off and lets you try again

A dad is someone who wants to keep you from making mistakes but instead lets you find your own way, even though his heart breaks in silence when you get hurt.

A dad is someone who holds you when you cry, scolds you when you break the rules, shines with pride when you succeed, and has faith in you even when you fail...

- Author Unknown

Forgive Yourself

Recently I was having a conversation about writing with my youngest daughter. She was doing some creative writing for a competition at her school and in the natural course of conversation we began going over acceptable practices in writing.

I mentioned my endeavor to create this book for them when she asked me a question I hadn't yet allowed to enter my head (or didn't think about entirely). What do I want them to know above all else and also not forget? By the way young lady, great question.

This is almost guaranteed to change over time despite going against the spirit of the question. There's too much I want to say. Let's go through a few honorable mentions first.

Almost without exception there will be priorities when dealing with people, objects, ideas or choices. The only exception that has remained when adding scrutiny or an objective lens is a parent's love for their children.

More specifically, my love for my children. Some parents haven't stopped being children themselves so I cannot speak for them. What you need to know is why and how that's possible.

Parents do not see their children as others do. Parents look on their child and see more than just a face, they see the future. The love a parent has for their child is far different than any other type of love.

It allows them to see beyond the imminent potential you may be able to see in a prospective employee or promising student, but potential far into the future and far beyond what has been known possible by man.

So while there will be differing levels of ability, maturity, and behavior amongst multiple children within a family, that image of limitless potential doesn't waver.

Another honorable mention should be how I feel about you. Hopefully I have raised you in such a manner that you would be able to cope in any event but for selfish reasons I need you to understand this.

I am so proud of you. You have lived and learned and grown. You have hurt yourself and others, but you have learned from it. You have tripped and fallen and scraped your knees but you have always gotten back up.

A large percentage of you have busted open your chins bad enough to warrant a hospital visit but still you press on, more beautiful than I could have imagined. You have developed independent personalities and interests.

You have obtained weird hobbies and objectively questionable tastes in music, but it's your own. You speak in a clear and confident manner (when you slow down and make yourself think, anyway).

You can articulate an idea successfully and describe a scene or situation fully and in English, which is important and far more difficult than you may believe. You learned to walk and run and jump.

You haven't died because you made some egregious error in judgement which happens to be very important to me. This was one of my biggest fears even before you were more than just an idea.

Don't ever question what I think of you or how I feel about you. You have accomplished more and developed further than I ever could have imagined at the beginning and I thank God every day I am lucky enough to be blessed with your continued existence in my life.

Regardless of the future mistakes you may make I have no doubt that in the end you will have a positive impact on the world. So far you are ahead of the curve in that area.

To the main point, forgive yourself. We are all humans, we make mistakes. Forgive yourself. You are going to hurt someone in time. Forgive yourself for that. You are going to hurt you. Forgive yourself for that too. You will, without a doubt, hurt me (though you likely won't be made aware).

Forgive yourself and don't go out of your way to seek my forgiveness. I entered into this relationship knowing full well there would be sleepless nights, pain, worry, suffering, fear, anxiety and all the other buzzwords. I came to terms with that long ago. Remember, I am older than color TV, according to you. I have had time to come to grips and learn to cope.

You do not need my forgiveness for anything you feel you have unfairly inflicted upon me. If you need to we can count it as payment for helping to send you out into a cruel and unforgiving world. Now that's unfair so you were just getting me back, but preemptively. The only thing that may need to be forgiven is malice and malevolence.

Intentionally inflicting harm does require forgiveness by virtue of its mechanism of operation and forgiveness is necessary to heal. In that case I can make an exception. For all else just make sure you can forgive yourself. If not, you will stagnate in life while you regret the past.

Let me be perfectly clear, that is harmful and stupid. As a whole you are not harmful and you sure as hell aren't stupid. You can do far more to make up for any gaffe by moving forward and achieving that which you find meaningful than you can by dwelling on mistakes. They already happened, you don't time travel.

You can apologize and accept responsibility. You can take steps to ameliorate any suffering you may have caused. If you can, do that. The mistake is to let it fester and brood. The mistake is to give it enough time to slow you down. This will have compounding effects on your future and anyone you may care about.

Forgive Yourself

You think you know who you are, what you SHOULD do or WOULD do, but you do not. Not yet, and likely not ever. But that's okay. You're human.

Forgive Yourself

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