Greetings!
One thing about life is that we will always hurt and offend ourselves as humans as no man is perfect. The fact that there's individual differences has made it possible for everyone not to always be on the same page as these individual differences would always make us not to be on the same page or always agree on a particular issue.
So, just because we are not perfect and not created the same way has opened the door of disagreement to exist among human folks. It's this act of disagreement among the human folks that always brings about chaos and misunderstanding.
However, there's no way we will not offend ourselves as humans. But one thing is that, if we offend ourselves, we should also find a way to forgive ourselves.
But the question is that, can we really forget after forgiving ourselves? To me and in response to the topic of the prompt before me, there's no way to forgive and forget.
One thing I have gotten to know about humans is that, when humans are being offended, it's always easy for them to forgive, but difficult to forget and this is because human brains are always quicker to remember others' mistakes than recording the good deeds of others.
Atimes, people only forgive one another just because it's been commanded by God that we should forgive ourselves as God has forgiven us and also, people tend to forgive themselves just to let peace reign among humans in the society.
However, if forgiveness is all about what God has commanded and also to give peace a chance in the society, then it would be so difficult for people to forget what and where others have wronged them as there is no genuine forgiveness anywhere.
In lieu of this, I would like to share my little experience about a friend of mine who offended me. Akin to a childhood friend of mine offended me. Though, I forgave him, but was unable to forget how he had wronged me.
It all happened when Akin came to me to lend him money for his business. When he asked me to lend him the money, I told him that I didn't have the money with me, but that I would help him to take a loan from my cooperative society, but that he would be the one to be repaying the money into my account just for me to be able to be repaying the loan with interest to the cooperative society.
So, we both agreed on the terms and conditions of the payment and as a result of that, I helped him obtain the loan from the cooperative and in the first 3 months after which I had helped him to take the loan, he was so sincere to our payment agreement.
However, after the three months, everything changed and he began not to pay the money as we had agreed and for the next two months, I was the one who paid the loan with interest, thinking he would continue paying it after he might have settled his children school fee, but even after he had settled the payment, he still didn't continue with the payment and it's then I called him and remind him about what we agreed on, but instead of him to relate with me with understanding, he began to shout at me, calling me all sorts of names and embarrassing me on the phone.
He even told me he would not even pay the remaining money again if I continued calling me. This was where I got angry and called his bluff. I lashed out at him and never called him back and he too never called back.
His attitude pained me and I decided to pay out the loan and with the help of God, I paid the loan with interest.
So, years later, he came to me with his wife and pleaded for my forgiveness, telling me it's the devil's work. When I heard, I got angry and I was like he should leave my sight, but his wife would not even allow him to leave.
So, later, when the pleadings were getting too much, I told them that I had forgiven him and i really meant what i told them due to the role his wife played, but even after that, whenever I remembered what he had done to me, I used to be like, such would not happen between us again and since then, he had never come to me for help and even if he should come to me, i have already decided that i would not render the help.
Although we've been relating well after the incident, but for the fact that he hurt my trust and later emotions back then, I find it difficult to forget what he had done to me, years after I had forgiven him.
In conclusion, it's kind of easy to forgive, but difficult to forget as that's how we humans have been customised through our reflective memory.
This is my entry to week 178, Edition 02 of the weekly Featured contest in the Hive Learners community.
Thanks for reading.
Picture is Ai generated.