Pollyanna

I heard someone say something today that blew me away.  It was an authority figure and although I weigh up everything I hear from anyone, the more I thought about it the more I accepted it related to my experience.  They said, “if you don’t take forgiveness seriously, you don’t understand how life works.”
I thought long and hard about that one, but I found it has been really important for me.  I do not know when a lot of stuff became important to me, but this has been one of them.  I am disinclined to set myself up as some sort of standard.  My thinking is, “I know I have been forgiven, and what right do I have not to forgive another?”
I know I have experienced injustices.  Where someone else was definitely in the wrong (in this instance it was them.  I do it sometimes too.)
(Unforgiveness to me is not the same as allowing my behaviour to be informed.  Where someone consistently hurts, I am wary.  But being wary is not the same as writing off.  Many like me want to change.  I would prefer to help facilitate the change from consistently bad behaviour to consistently good behaviour)
I know forgiveness is more than forgetting something.  I find that is impossible.  While ever I am here, I have my history with me.  What happens to me is a part of me.  I find it impossible to pretend something never happened when it did.  Besides I have found pretending only buries something deeper.  It does not go away.  It is just harder to deal with the next time.
I have had to resist big time the thought that my forgiveness of someone is dependant on their behaviour first.  I could be waiting a long time, and it may never happen.  Besides I reckon that is ceding control of me to another.
It would all be insignificant in a sense if unforgiveness did not control me.  But it can.  I am not a Pollyanna.  Bad stuff happens.  But I reckon bad stuff does not need to make me bad.  And I have found unforgiveness is a bad thing.  It colours my view of the world.  Makes it a more unpleasant place.  Makes me more an unpleasant person.  My negative actions can produce negativity in others.
I have seen and experienced the effects unforgiveness can have.  It does not just mess with the mind it can also have physical effects.
Personally I do not want to go there.  Forgiving is hard, and it is often not just a one-off thing but the offence is revisited.  I know I need help.  Superpower help.  It seems to be in my nature to hold and nurture hurt.  Part of me wants another to get what I consider to be their just desserts.
Yet I know I deserve to get my just desserts.  Maybe I have never knowingly ripped someone off or hurt another, but participating in life means I am not perfect.  For sure I would like to be.
Dealing with such things as unforgiveness is the way to go for me.  Revenge is not for me.  Effecting someone else’s behaviour negatively is not for me either.
I want to be the best me possible.  If that means dealing with things I would rather hold on to, then so be it.