Human Nature

Music: Poe - Haunted

Kam and I talked about an entry in Jane Duvall's Journal on Human Nature yesterday. Kam is more like her husband Jim and I am more like her. Nick is in between. There are people in my life he wants me to write off because they hurt me. But he also sees in some instances forgiveness is needed.

Kam believes we are taught right and wrong. You start by being taught as a child by your parents rules for right and wrong - basics. Such as maybe that you take off your shoes when you walk into the house - and if you don’t you get punished. And he feels that basic right and wrong grows as we become adults learning from teachers, authority figures and society in general. That we know when we are doing something wrong - such as if people fudge on their taxes, a clerk hands back to much change, and he also used our business as an example.

Anyway Jane writes, "I tend to forgive in about 5 minutes time. Why? Because I will always believe that harm was not intended. People make mistakes and do rotten things to each other, but I hold firm to my belief that it's most often out of fear or sadness that people do bad things, not out of a genuine desire to hurt someone else."

I don't think most people go into things thinking this will harm someone. But I do think they get into situations where they realize that it is going to harm someone and still go forward....and that is what I don't understand. I think that people do rotten things because of fear or other reasons - things in their past that affect them. But I also think we need to look at those things and try to conquer that fear or those issues so that we don't continue to hurt people. I mean in the long run the person we hurt the most by doing "negative" things is our self.

When I get hurt and/or mad at someone, I want to mend things right away. If that person and I can do that - then it is done and things are wiped clean. But if things linger on - my hurt grows. It is like they are doing 2 negative things instead of just the initial one. And so the hurt grows. So, I don't think I forgive until a person apologizes or does work to repair things, but I am always willing to work on it. And if that does not happen then I have to hold that person out at arms length and most people don't like that and so walk away.

I feel I forgive - but I still feel the hurt in situations where things are not worked out right away. And most people I think would say that I am not forgiving if I am not letting go of that hurt. I guess I feel that I need to deal with that hurt - it is almost like a grieving process and even though I can go on with that relationship with the person and feel genuine love, understanding, caring, support I still have to deal with the feelings that they caused in me. But for the most part I don't think I let my issues of dealing with the hurt - affect us going forward in our relationship.

I feel people are essentially good. But believe me at times I do question that....but at my core I want to believe that and have faith in that. Just like Jane says it would be hard for me to live in this world without faith that people are essentially good.

peace,
danae