Angie Week 13 Forgive and Forget
“Forgive and forget,” a common phrase delivered to encourage us to move on with our lives whenever we stumble upon something unpleasant. However, is forgiving and forgetting really as simple as people make it sound? There is an important difference to note between forgiving and forgetting; to forgive is to acknowledge and understand that people make mistakes and that they can change for the better. Forgetting, on the other hand, is removing the event from its existence in your memory. A person can only remember so much, and how we choose to allocate that space determines our values in life.
While it’s easy to forgive, many find it difficult to forget. Even if we are not conscious of the wounds and pain in our lives, our body and mind remembers them, ultimately affecting our day-to-day lives. In other words, we can never fully forget the pains inflicted on us by other people.
However, on the other hand, humans also tend to forget unwanted memories. Memories that will resurface feelings of sadness, regret, and anger are better off to be forgotten than to be kept in a person’s field of emotions. When humans forgive however, the event is deemed important, and has a heavy impact on them. We can convince ourselves that there is a simmer of pleasantness in a sea of darkness if we choose to. The human brain and memory adapts to the desires of people and their visions of certain scenarios, which in itself is a powerful entity.
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Hi Angie, I found your blog to be very informative on the difference between forgiving and forgetting. It is interesting how people are easy to forgive others but do not forget as painful memories tend to linger in the back of one's mind. I also liked how forgetting depends on forgiving as once a person decided to forgive, the event is deemed important and is now harder to forget.
ReplyDeleteWhat a thought-provoking post! I believe forgetting helps slightly with the process of forgiving. Though the memory of a wrong inflicted by another person may never leave your mind, time will inevitably dull your anger as it fades important details, and make pardoning them easier. Still, sometimes the line between the two does become blurred.
ReplyDeleteHi Angie,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting because I have also commonly heard the phrase forgive, but never forget. I think that is a more recent saying, however. Although it is not easy to forgive, it is definitely easier than forgetting. Even if there is something that you consciously try to forget, chances are, that you will not be able to. Forgetting is a process that the brain undergoes naturally.
Hi Angie, I've always heard the words "forgive and forget" by those around me, but I think I have also found it difficult to truly commit to that. We cannot choose what we don't want to and want to erase from our minds, which personally, was a really hard pill for me to swallow. But, that does not stop me from cherishing old memories and making new ones as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Angie, I always hated that saying, "forgive and forget". I don't easily forgive, and I rarely forget. Still it really isn't up to me what I remember and what I forget. That part of our mind runs completely on it's own, and seemingly makes it's own decisions about what we remember and forget. Maybe we can forgive, but it's not really in our power to forget.
ReplyDeleteHey Angie, I always hear that saying forgive and forget and personally that saying feels to me way overused and when i hear it it makes me remember a time when I was wronged and people don't take that situation seriously and try to dismiss it and tell you to forgive and forget.
ReplyDeleteHi Angie, I really liked how you deconstructed a common phrase in your post, and I agree that forgetting is not as easy as it sounds. It is true that we forget things unintentionally on a daily basis, but to actively forget something is a whole other ordeal. In fact, I'd wager to say that the things we try hardest to forget are what remain the most persistent inside of our minds.
ReplyDeleteHi Angie, I agree that it is easy to forgive, but it is hard to forget. While we can forgive someone or something, forgetting what happened seems very hard. I think that this shows how we do not have complete control over our memories. For example, we sometimes forget important things, but we remember the rather useless moments in our lives.
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