We are often irked almost daily at home or in work place by some annoying remark or hurting insult. We dwell on the incident endlessly like a dog with a bone making ourselves more miserable. We become irritable and in turn pass on this mood to others. Eventually in a few days we tend to forget the incident as other events in our life crowd in wiping out the memory. New thoughts or new hurts take over. The question is how when we eventually forget every incident or remember them faintly in reduced intensity, why we cannot forget right away when the incident occurred? Why carry the unhappy thought for long only to be forgotten anyway. God in His infinite compassion has made us forget the unpleasant and painful thoughts, sorrows and suffering as otherwise life would be a living hell. So why wait for the mental self defense to work eventually to forget and why not get rid of the thought immediately.Look at the benefits. We are spared of the unpleasantness of dwelling on it and harbouring vengeful thoughts. Our mind becomes clear and purer. It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it. Once we forget we resist the temptation to respond angrily by word or deed and present to the victimizer a cool indifference. Our mind is also free to take on newer thoughts and activities, often pleasant and engaging. We are also freed from the consequences of tension on our health both physical and mental. It is sometimes good to develop a thick hide as a defense mechanism. Let us not wait for the natural mental process to obliterate unpleasant thoughts but forget them now. It takes some effort but it is worthwhile.
It is not he who gives abuse that affronts, but the view that we take of it as insulting; so that when one provokes you it is your own opinion which is provoking. Epictetus
nice one
ReplyDeletesome efforts required to put it into action.......hard but not impossible
A good write up which can help one a lot in daily life... thanks for sharing..
ReplyDeletethis is such a wonderful post. i enjoyed reading it. my hubby also used to say that, we are bound to forget the past. we don't have that much memory to remember every single incident. otherwise we will be weeping all the time.
ReplyDeleteit does take some time to get back to normalcy especially when you are hurt. but we are going to forget and forgive anyway after a few days.. why not do it right away?
One may forget certain things but unfortunately they keep piling on in our sub conscious. We forget and move on, it seems that things have had no effect on us, but sometime later we get to know that somewhere the incident just got stored and it did hit back when we didnt need it at all. Thats life. Remembering God and praying to him to heal us with time is the best we can do. Nice post.
ReplyDeletethat was a good one..
ReplyDeleteloved the last line, but im not very sure if i can make it work
yes.. u r right..
ReplyDeletebt that sudden rage is too difficult to control..
bt we cn try tht not to carry those things for long.. just take thm easy n forget... :)
gud work.. :)
one way to forget a hurt word, or incident is to remain calm and say to oneself that whatever is said was directed not at Me , the real Self but to the perishable Mind, Body complex. Very difficult, easily said than done. Every single incident is stored in the sub-conscious and pops out years later. Needs lots of spiritual paractice.
ReplyDeleteThought provoking write-up.
Forgetting insults is good, forgiving is great, this paves for our own spiritual growth. but alas.. we are also enabling the insulting person to get stronger and more arrogant, pushing him down his spiritual growth!
ReplyDelete