Forgiveness - Moving Away not Moving On
Forgiveness is not about moving on from the past or from the person. Forgiveness implies, you move away from the state you were in. Forgive yourself for falling into that state, and let go of your old self to transform into a new one. It’s not just about moving on but moving away from the previous state that made you miserable.
Forgiving the person responsible for your situation will leave you bitter unless you also forgive the person who made the choices that put you in such a condition—you. Don’t hate your old self for its ignorance; instead, forgive yourself for it, and learn to make better choices. When you do this, the need to see the other person suffer disappears.
Your wound won’t heal by giving someone else a wound. Tragedy is circumstantial, but suffering is always internal. We have little control over what happens to us, but how we interpret tragic circumstances is entirely within our control. A physically challenged person can be more hopeful than someone suffering from depression due to loneliness. The difference lies in how the individual has internalized their suffering.
So, even if you get your sweet revenge, what will it change? The person within you who made those choices is still the same, the person who suffered because of those choices is still the same, and therefore, the person who committed the act of revenge will also continue to suffer—because the person is the same. Revenge is only sweet if, before enacting it, you have transformed your personality.
Life is about going through experiences—some make us stronger, some destroy us from within. Wisdom lies in how we interpret those experiences. If we convert every experience into a lesson, we will become much wiser than we were when we made those mistakes. Dwelling on one bad day, or one bad phase of life, is useless because the suffering is in your head, so you have to change the interpretation.
Time doesn’t heal; you have to heal yourself. One of the simplest ways to do that is by interpreting tragedies objectively, learning from them, and becoming a person who makes wiser choices.