Spring Cleaning - Part II

In my Monday Message last week I mentioned how this might be a good time of year to do some spring cleaning of your emotional attic…your heart. My message focused on how important it is to forgive yourself but there is also another type of forgiveness…learning to forgive others…which is really hard to do at times, but equally just as important.

The reason I think forgiveness of others is so hard is because it goes against human nature. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do, but instead, if we forgive, we demonstrate the power of love to break nature’s rule. In fact, forgiveness and sacrifice are two of the best examples of love that we can offer up - and they go hand in hand because being willing to forgive means having the strength to make a personal sacrifice. Let me give you an example…

For many years I owned a large Lighting Maintenance Company and there was one particular Purchasing Manager in San Diego who made my life miserable. She was an older lady and tough, which would have been okay, but unfortunately she was not fair. She took advantage of my willingness to work hard and asked for nearly impossible results on a routine basis. On one job she had us remove hundreds of brand new expensive light fixtures because “she changed her mind”. It cost me thousands of dollars and there were dozens of projects like that, but it was the verbal abuse she handed out on a regular basis, calling my employees and me “stupid” that was even worse. One time she called me while I was at the Naval Hospital in San Diego. My father was dying from cancer and when I tried to explain I was in the intensive care ward, she told me she didn’t care about my personal problems, that I needed to solve a problem for her immediately…or else!  Her company was an important client of ours and the rest of the people were extremely professional and absolutely great to deal with, so I labored on the best I could. But I admit I harbored a lot of resentment for a very long time.
 

Then one day something changed. I was walking by her building when I spotted her sitting outside on a bench eating lunch alone. She didn’t see me or seem to notice the crowds of other people enjoying a mid-day break in the sunshine. But I saw her and what I saw was a lonely person, filled with anger and self doubt, eating all by herself despite being surrounded by fellow employees. At that moment I realized that she was a human being just like me and I guess I felt sorry for her. I realized that harboring resentment towards her was wrong. It was like being petty because so much of my life was going great in so many other ways. Right then and there I decided to forgive her and it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. Harboring resentment was a sign of weakness on my part and as soon as I realized I had the strength to let it go, I felt like a new man. When you are strong enough to forgive, you set a prisoner free - and quite often you discover that prisoner was you!

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.
~ Mahatma Gandhi