Asking for Forgiveness from Someone You’ve Wronged
In his An Essay On Criticism, Alexander Pope wrote that “To err is human, to forgive, divine”. We all make mistakes, whether intentionally or otherwise. Part of the everyday reality of our existence is that we will get things wrong, even when we lead off with the best intentions. Getting things wrong is part of the human condition. However, this state of affairs doesn’t mean being content leaving things as they are, which is where asking for forgiveness comes in. You can wrong someone in a wide variety of ways. You can disappoint the expectations that they had of you, especially if they are legitimate ones. You can break your word and not do something that you’d said you would, and so breach their trust. You can also wrong them by not being there for them when they need you most. You can thus wrong someone by what you do, as well as what you don’t do. The it means to forgive There is often misunderstanding about what forgiveness means and doesn’t mean. For some people, they understand forgiveness as being given a free pass for the wrong things they’ve done. Others view forgiveness as being conditioned upon you engaging in good behavior for a set period of time. As such, forgiveness is often understood as something that’s earned, or as a license to do as you please. Both of these are flawed in important ways. Forgiveness does not mean that what you did was okay. When someone forgives you, they are releasing themselves from carrying any feelings of animosity or the desire to dish out to you what you did to them. If you hadn’t done anything wrong, there would be nothing to forgive. What you did was wrong – you should not have done it, and it [...]
