Exploring Forgiveness — The Subtle Art of Not Taking Things Personally

Painting: The Return of the Prodigal Son, Italian (Neapolitan) – School, circa 1630

“I stand for law and order, okay? I wear a badge. This guy wears a mask like an outlaw. He’s hunting down criminals that all look the same like he’s got some sort of personal vendetta. But he’s not protecting innocent people, Mr. Parker.”

— Captain Stacy, The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

“You will please no one by soiling those little hands. The dead wish only that the living be happy. In time, those little hands will grow big and you will be a man. Do not use your strength to oppress, like those who serve Shishio. And do not let fear make you helpless, like these people of the village. Be a man who guards his family to the last, like your brother.”

— Himura Kenshin, Rurouni Kenshin: The Kyoto Inferno (2014)

In February 2025, I came across the Byzantine Rite Forgiveness Vespers observed in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) before the Great Fast (i.e., Lent). During this ceremony, the concelebrating clergy and the parishioners pardon each other for the hurts inflicted upon one another, deliberately or unwittingly, reassuring each other that Christ is ever eager to absolve us of our sins.

Rite of Forgiveness. Photo by Yours Truly.

After the Forgiveness Vespers, I remarked to the priest who concelebrated the liturgy with the bishop, “We could all use some more forgiveness and grace.” And he replied, “Oh yes, absolutely,” and nodded his head approvingly.

Divine Liturgy. Photo by Yours Truly.

Throughout high school, the idea of forgiveness just didn’t click. In my adolescent mind, it meant an ignoble passive resignation to betrayal, impertinent behaviour from others, and to flakiness in relationships.

And what didn’t help was that I didn’t really have much exposure to concrete demonstrations of real forgiveness while coming of age.

So I figured that to avoid animosity was to eliminate friction altogether in my relationships. The problem with this idea is that you can forget about forming close, committed relationships as you’re constantly walking on eggshells and distancing yourself emotionally in the face of disagreement and conflict. To me, signs of friction spelled the end of what might have been a pleasant connection.

Nearing the conclusion of my undergraduate, I had a very bad falling out with a ‘friend’ of about four years. I say ‘friend’ because he disclosed that after all this time, he’d never treasured me as one.

This left me bitterly crushed. The same sentiments of being misunderstood and taken for a fool that I felt back in high school came crashing in again.

“Woe is me,” I believed. “Again, tough luck making real friends.”

There I was, writing him off as bad company, just as I did with certain people I crossed paths with back in high school. Resentment has been a familiar companion since my adolescence and for much of my twenties.

Eventually, I started taking therapy seriously and came across Mark Manson’s documentary, The Subtle Art, thus planting the seeds of change.

My sessions and Manson’s heartfelt (yet crude and funny) sharing of his experiences with failed relationships were considerably instructive in shedding the caricatures of forgiveness. I learned to take personal responsibility for relationships gone south through drawing boundaries, instead of obsessing over finding fault or playing the blame game.

Indeed, the notion of forgiveness, of turning the other cheek and exhibiting charity to your adversaries, is so often misunderstood and misrepresented.

Platitudes like “Forgive and Forget” give the impression that staying in toxic relationship dynamics, for instance, is an indication of virtue. It comes across as a dismissive band-aid that gaslights people who are wounded and hurting because of the callous words and actions from others they once trusted.

In addition, with this whole cancel culture phenomenon that pervades cyberspace, it fills individuals with an intoxicating sense of moral superiority. Individuals are written off at the slightest perceived infraction or disagreement without due regard for context. What is often overlooked is that the person in question may have just been simply being human, not hypocritical.

If anything, this severely stifles the development of emotional intelligence and breeds skin-deep relationships where people are ill-equipped to communicate, instead talking over each other and hiding behind online pseudonyms when friction is encountered.

That said, it remains the case that forgiveness does lead to extensive mental health benefits and the building of closer, deeper relationships.

Some people, despite being maligned or in worse cases, were on the receiving end of abuse and mortal peril, pardoned their aggressors and personally initiated reconciliation, expressing a profound sense of gratitude for their post-traumatic growth.

Some with loved ones murdered, choose to wish the best for their belligerents instead of nursing a grudge whilst upholding the course of justice. Others decide to just focus on rebuilding their lives and starting afresh with new goals, deeming the endeavour to get even with the parties who wronged them a waste of time.

The way people exercise forgiveness and achieve personal closure is very diverse, but the essence of it remains the same: A conscious, regular decision to relinquish the impulse to hate and retaliate, and to pursue personal peace instead.

Verily, to live with chronic hate is associated with multiple health issues, such as a weakened immune system, hypertension, and addictive behaviours. The equivalent would be grasping hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else, but you are the one who gets burned.

Make no mistake — Forgiveness is not the same as toxic positivity, denying/whitewashing the atrocity, or playing the doormat. Forgiveness, first and foremost, is precisely for your well-being and empowerment.

And to reap the fruits of forgiveness, we need to first recognize what it looks like in the concrete, which makes a world of difference in working through the emotional turmoils that go hand in hand with the process of forgiveness. Here I summarise forgiveness in four sequential steps (S.E.E.D), accompanied by practical examples to illustrate.

Steps of Forgiveness (S.E.E.D)

1. Separate action (and belief) from the person

It goes without saying that none of us live through life exempt from experiencing some form of setback and having our toes stepped on.

Even in the same clique or community, your associates will express views (cultural tastes, political leanings, ideas, etc.) and behaviours with variations and deviations from your own.

However, some influencers and so-called mental health experts stress the need to shun such people, all in the name of “self-care”. And taken to its logical conclusion, we’d find ourselves uncomfortably lonely.

As a kid, the world exists as a strict binary — there are good and bad people. Friends and Foes. Those who do wrong, and those who do right and stop them. The two sides are as different as day and night, and the demarcation between them is clear.

Or at least, that’s how it’s “supposed” to be.

The longer we live, it becomes clear that people live complex lives and carry baggage of varying shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, most people remain stuck operating with an immature worldview of cognitive splitting.

The psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt, in her LinkedIn course, Working with Difficult People, ranks how the behaviour of others challenges us in four levels.

• Level 1: Differing quirks, perspectives, and personality traits (e.g., accented speech, stimming to dissipate nervous energy).

• Level 2: Deficiency in skills (e.g., flakiness instead of clear communication, being short-tempered).

• Level 3: Frustrating Chronic Behaviours (e.g., micromanagement, tardiness).

• Level 4 (Extreme): Malicious Injustice (e.g., sexual assault, bullying)

These levels serve as a guide to navigating the nuances of human behaviour and to equip us to properly judge a situation and respond proportionately.

For instance, the colleague or classmate who seemingly responded to you rudely may not have always been like this.

They may have been mentally exhausted; hence the slip-up in manners. They may still have a long way to go in learning social skills like competently reading the room. Or, they might not be insolent, but may be seeing matters from a different angle that you may not have considered.

In all likelihood, they have no personal beef with you. Of course, this is not to say these are all fact, but legitimate possibilities that shouldn’t be overlooked. To ignore this is to potentially leave a person woefully wronged.

This is what it means to separate behaviours and beliefs from the person — to see a person in their entirety and their potential for change, for improvement.

This is the un-skippable step and to bypass this is to undermine the whole project — If you’re going to presumptuously attribute a person’s shortcomings, errors and differences to malice, oftentimes ruling out the possibility of either foolishness or weakness, everyone around you will be an insufferable enemy, including your well-meaning friends and family.

2. Exercise Empathy

Now that you see the person beyond their mannerisms and views, you can try to walk in their shoes. This is the heart of empathy — gaining an insight into the experiences that influenced them into the person they are.

Do not be mistaken, empathy is not the same as endorsement, especially where wrong ideas and immoral actions are concerned. It simply means coming to understand the factors driving a person’s behaviour as explanations, not excuses.

Suppose you have a girlfriend who’s flaky in her commitment despite your efforts, and the relationship goes south. But you dig deeper, you find that she comes from a dysfunctional family background, which led her to grow up significantly unskilled in forming meaningful, committed relationships. Thus, you understand, and it becomes easier to forgive, now that all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place.

Now, what you did wasn’t to justify her behaviour but to ensure this setback doesn’t colour your perspective and dictate the dynamics of your future interpersonal relationships. This shortcoming of hers is her responsibility to resolve, not yours.

Striving to see things from another person’s angle can lead to better mutual respect and deeper connection. In other cases, for personal closure and moving on.

3. Enforce Boundaries

If forgiveness is synonymous with “forgetting”, it strips away the lessons needed to be learnt to avoid the repetition of history. Moreover, all it takes is a trigger to send you reeling in anguish and discomfort whenever the offending party or anything that remotely reminds you of the offence appears.

In addition, while reconciliation includes forgiveness, forgiveness itself is not synonymous with reconciliation or relationship restoration, especially when the trustworthiness of the offending party remains wanting.

For example, you may pardon your ex-girlfriend for being two-timing, but it’s a non-sequitor to conclude that it automatically necessitates getting back together, especially when the red flags remain uncorrected.

You may forgive your pedophilic relative for abusing your kid, and simultaneously file a police report and exclude said relative from family gatherings and celebratory occasions to protect your child.

You may forgive drunk drivers for mortally wounding your sibling in a traffic accident, whilst campaigning for a heavier sentence when they are given a slap on the wrist, to firmly deter incidents of DUI in the future.

What loving your enemies also looks like is you keeping them at arms’ length, bringing them to face justice and praying/wishing for their best.

By making them face the music, they may experience genuine remorse and thus a necessary deterrence is effectuated to prevent future harm.

Such is the purpose of boundaries — to foster self-respect, accountability and to deepen relationships.

This isn’t about being spiteful, but about service to charity and righteousness. Good, virtuous men are NOT pushovers.

4. Distance Yourself from (Unhealthy) Emotional Attachment

It’s been said before, the best revenge is ultimately building a life so great that endeavouring to even the score with those who wronged you appears as a significant waste of time.

And this brings us to the tale of two musicians — Dave Mustaine and Pete Best. Both were unjustly dismissed from their bands, Metallica and The Beatles, respectively.

One went on to start his own band, Megadeth, which managed to sell 38 million copies worldwide. Despite this achievement, Mustaine remained miserable as he didn’t manage to surpass Metallica’s glory. His old bandmates and the emotional sting of betrayal lived rent-free in his head.

Pete Best was, for a time, depressed and thought of un-aliving himself after being disgraced. Eventually, he picked himself up, married, and started a family, leaving the spotlight and never looking back. His humble contentment and gratitude for the people who loved him for him, juxtaposed with Mustaine’s obsession with settling old scores despite his new band’s breakthrough.

Eventually, Mustaine apparently found it in himself to forgive Metallica, realizing that holding onto grudges only leads to more pain.

This is the final step of forgiveness, where all the fantasies of payback and nursing resentment are relinquished, in favour of peace and better goals.

Conclusion

Now, I imagine some of you reading this are probably shaking your heads, saying, “Man what is he talking about? This dude doesn’t even know my story. I’ve been through too much and my scars remain.”

If that’s you, I hear you, and I won’t pretend to know the extent of your pain, let alone assume thorough knowledge of your context.

Nevertheless, I’d recommend professional counselling, where you can work through your trauma or setback in a safe space, with a trusted therapist as a guide to help you develop an objective, third-person perspective on a lot of situations. Away from what your unconscious cognitive biases/distortions would have you believe.

In any case, don’t suppress your feelings. Let yourself feel them. Remember it all, and let it go. Rinse and repeat the process of S.E.E.D.

On a personal note, sometimes the mere thought of the people who wronged me, like my former college mate, is enough to make me irate. This is to the extent of painting a mental picture of these people as duplicitous, vicious villains.

For me, forgiveness involves prayer, taking a good look in the mirror, and honestly asking — have I done my share of kerosene-dumping into the fire by my insecurity, ignorance and/or deliberation?

Lord knows I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, and likewise wronged or misunderstood others through my inconsideration. Sometimes reconciliation isn’t possible because of distance or reluctance from the other party.

Ergo, I keep the kernels of wisdom that they may inform my future interactions for the better. Because a man repeats what he doesn’t repair.

Other times, I ask myself if the offence inflicted will matter in 5 years. If not, then I can simply give the matter a rest. And the practice of S.E.E.D is kick-started anew.

This is what it means to heal and build emotional resilience.

To master The Subtle Art of Not Taking Things Personally.

Batman educates Richard Grayson, Nightwing #112 (2024). Credits: DC comics.

Peace.