I’m not going to lie. When I started thinking about F words and verbs for this month’s A-Z challenge, I struggled with my habitual G and PG ratings. I considered skipping F. Instead, I decided to confess my dirty mind and ask for your forgiveness.
Through teaching school for twenty years, I refined a philosophy. I get along with 99% of everyone I know, and the other 1% is not my problem. More often than not, those who fall in the 1% are dealing with something that has nothing to do with me. However, I later realized that sometimes the people crawling under my skin were the people closest to me. Did they fall into my 1%? Did I have a bigger problem getting along with people than I wanted to admit?
I came up with another philosophy through fifty-one years of life experience. Expectations in other people lead to disappointments. People will fail you. People, especially those closest to you, will say and do things you don’t like. What’s a person to do? Say, “I’m right and you’re wrong”? Fight about it? Hold grudges forever? Delete family and friends out of your life one-by-one? Forgive and move on?
Forgiveness is hard, and I’m no expert. But I do know life is too short to resent people for being human. If you struggle like me (and have an extra 38 minutes), you might want to watch this. This guy helped me.
I appreciate you for reading my 2021 A-Z Challenge post today. This April, I’m sticking to a theme of action: mental, physical, and spiritual, things I might already do or haven’t attempted in years or maybe never. You know what else I’m trying for some balance? Answers found in these links: Abstain, Ballet, Cartwheel, Devote, Encourage.
Faith + Gratitude = Peace + Hope 
Hello Crystal, Norman Vincent Peale, author of “The Power of Positive Thinking” was the head pastor at The Marble Colligate Church in New York City. When they sold tapes of his sermons, the tapes about forgiveness were always the one with the lowest sales. A tough subject for just about everyone. Thanks for your essay and have a super doodle day and remember to forgive the dirty bird that cut you off in traffic. Jerry
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Thanks for that, Jerry! As for those drivers, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
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Forgiveness can be tough, until you realize forgiveness helps you, even if it does not help anyone in the 1%. Life is too short to harbour grudges. I saw a good camper van ad in NZ years back that read “Revenge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” I am sure Anger and Hate are similar. Stay well. Allan
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Hi Allan! Thanks for reading. Funny—I just used the NZ camper van ad in a post a couple of days ago. It’s so true.
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Forgiveness is always tough. But it helped me when I realised that it is between God and me when I forgive someone else and it frees me from waiting on the other person acknowledging that they accept that they hurt me. It is letting go and allowing God to heal us and move on.
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Healing ourselves is a great way to look at it. If God forgives me, who am I to not pay it forward?
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“ . . . life is too short to resent people for being human” — perfectly said!
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Thank you, Neil! Most of us are doing the best we can. Sometimes grace shown when undeserved ripples forward. I saw Les Mis the other night, and that was my takeaway.
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I like
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I like you. 🤍 Thanks, Eliza!
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Thank you
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Great post. I try to stay aware of how easy my expectations create a reality that lives in fantasy. I know in Zen the encouragement is to see expectations and realize they are another story, not an actuality. Yikes, the stories we tell! Be well my friend.
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Thank you for visiting, Bryan! Expectations create a reality that lives in fantasy. That is good!
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Forgiveness can be though, but it also helps those who forgive
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So very true! ❤️
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🙏🌹🙏
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Forgiveness is, indeed, very tough, especially in the cases where forgiveness is interpreted as a license to hurt or harm again.
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And some people seem to be oblivious to the harm they cause.
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To err is human
To forgive is often
Hard to find
Cause it’s
Mostly in our
Subconscious mind?
But we must try!
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To forgive is often. That’s good! 🤍
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What a great post. Thank you for this!
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I’m happy it speaks to you. Thank you, Nico!
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🙂
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Helpful entry, Crystal. Definitely a great use of your F-Powers.
I like your “life is too short to resent people” observation. Quite true and, much as we’d like to hope otherwise, inevitably we ourselves make up somebody else’s 1%. Let it eat away at our humanity, or move on? It’s not an easy decision, but the choice is ours to make.
Thank goodness you avoided that obviously dirty F-word, thus preserving your PG rating. Definitely, fudge-making is a messy endeavor, and if not managed properly, it can lead to many other non-PG F-words. Fudge-eating can be far-from-neat too. Thanks much for sparing us the temptation.
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Keith, your ability to read my mind is uncanny. Fudge-making and eating is a dirty, dirty business. Someone’s gotta do it.
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I gotta say I really like what you’re doing with this A-Z challenge. Though I’m in the middle of a self-imposed blogging sabbatical, you’re really inspiring me lady. Thanks for that.
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Rhonda, I have to admit, there are some letters that have me seriously stumped. I’m trying to take it a week at a time and happy I’m taking Sundays off. This week the letter “i” is throwing me for a loop, not to mention “j” and “k,” but those posts are next week.
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“But I do know life is too short to resent people for being human.”
This one is going the the Crystal quotes hall of fame!
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Excellent! I’m honored! Thank you, David!
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I am big on forgiveness
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Me, too, but I do occasionally stumble into a tough one to let go. I suppose much of that depends on what I might be going through at the time.
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I get that
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I appreciate your choice Crystal. Forgiveness is relieve our pain and sorrow. It make us more stronger.💪✍️🆒
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I think so! 🤍
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I am a little R rated. I will be moving on.
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It’s okay. Life is too short to resent people for being human.
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I have struggles with forgiveness, too. Bitterness is a toxin that destroys, so I’ve been learning more about the (good) ‘F’ word. Thanks for sharing, Crystal.
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What’s the saying? “To err is human. To forgive is divine.” That explains it.
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Very true. 🙂
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Forgiveness is a big one… Took me many tears and years in therapy to understand the act of forgiveness and doing it for your own mental health more than anything else!l Love the inspo!
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❤️ Love your added perspective and support! Thank you, BB!
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The F word comes first. And i F-eel nice! Excuse my language, dear.
I do not forget and i do not forgive. Some people and actions do not deserve our forgiveness, if i may say so.
And i’m a noble man!
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😂 I respect that. Good vibes from me to you!
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Thank you, Crystal !
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