Therefore, all of us have been offended/hurt by somebody who has not lived up to their part of the bargain. Everyday at work I hear this excuse: "So and So teased me, so I teased them back." or "So and So hit me, so I hit them back...I have to 'defend' myself." The way I see it, there are no humans who live up to their ethical code 100% of the time.
This becomes complicated, because how offended we are by somebody treating us badly is directly proportional to how "good" of a person we think they are. For instance, when a "shitbag" treats us poorly, we are not offended because that person always treats everyone poorly; when a "righteous" person messes up we are deeply offended because we expect them to do a better job of treating us right. We are surprised when "good" people behave badly. A Pastor sinning is more offensive than a ne0-nazi sinning.
Now, what do we do when the scoundrel, the person who "should know better than that," also goes by the same name as I do and looks just like me; what do I do when I am the dick?
This comes down to two ethical stands that don't usually make the top 10:
- Humility
- Forgiveness
All of us who have messed up need forgiven...there is the forgiveness.
Holding a grudge creates what eventually becomes the opposite of rest. If I have a grudge I cannot rest well, and the deeper the grudge the less rest I get!
So we need to find humility, recognizing that the person who offended us is in need of the same forgiveness that we need from somebody else we have offended. Its like the opposite of paying it forward (the idea that we return good deeds to somebody other than the person that did the deed for us)...we forgive the person who has offended us because we need forgiven by the person we have offended.
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