People make mistakes. Sometimes very serious ones. As often
as not, the mistakes aren’t deliberate or personal. Sometimes
people just don’t know what they are doing. This means that
if, in the past, people have behaved badly toward you, it wasn’t
necessarily because they meant to be horrid, but because they
were as naïve, as foolish, as human as the rest of us. They
made mistakes in the way they brought you up or finished a
relationship with you or whatever, not because they wanted to
do it that way, but because they didn’t know any different.
If you want to, you can let go of any feelings of resentment, of
regret, of anger. You can accept that you are a fabulous human
being because of all the bad things that have happened to you,
not in spite of them. What is done is done, and you need to
just get on with your life. Don’t use the labels “good” and
“bad.” Yes, I know some of it is indeed bad, but it is how we
let it affect us that is the real “bad.” You could let all these
things get you down, fizzle away internally like some emo-
tional acid making you ill and resentful and stuck. But you
will let them go, embrace them as character forming, and in
general as positive rather then negative.
On paper I had a seriously dysfunctional childhood and for a
while was resentful. I blamed my bizarre upbringing for all
that was weak or dispirited or badly formed in me. It’s so easy
to do. But once I accepted that what was done was done, and
that I could choose to forgive and get on with my life, things
improved enormously. Not all of my siblings chose the same
route, and they carried on building up the resentment until it overwhelmed them.
For me it was essential, if I wanted more out of my life, to
embrace all the bad things as being an important part of me
and to move on. In fact, I wanted them to fuel me into my
future, to become positive to such an extent that I couldn’t
imagine being me without them. Now, if given the choice, I
wouldn’t change a thing. Yes, looking back, it was tough being
the kid I was, living the life I did, but it has certainly helped
make me, me.
I think the change occurred once I realized that even if I could
get in front of me all the people who had “done me wrong,”
there would still be nothing they could do. I could shout at
them, berate them, rant at them, but there would be nothing
they could do to make amends or put things right. They, too,
would have to accept that what’s done is done. There is no
going back, only forward. Make it a motto for life keep moving forward.
RULE 3
WHAT IS DONE IS DONE,
AND YOU NEED TO
JUST GET ON
WITH YOUR LIFE.
