The challenge of forgiveness
Let me set up a hypothetical situation for you.
Someone does something really crappy to you. It doesn’t involve torture, bloodshed, or imminent danger to life or limb — but it’s not a minor annoyance, either. Think cheating, stealing, lying to or about you, that kind of thing. To make matters worse, it’s done by someone you thought you had every reason to trust. And when you say, “Hey, what the hell,” this person you trusted plays the “you made me do it” card.
What do you do? Unless you’re a saint, you get mad, and you probably stay that way for a good long while. But then what?
To some extent, this is a universal experience. It’s probably not hypothetical to you. It’s not hypothetical to me.
To add insult to injury, someone who took advantage of my trust has noticed that I made the best of the betrayal, and now points to that as proof that it wasn’t actually that bad and, in fact, might even be considered as having done me a favor.
What do I do? I’m not a saint. I got mad. I’ve stayed that way for a good long while. But now what?
Because the thing is, I’m starting to realize that my anger is no longer serving me. Oh, it did at first. It gave me the strength to stand up for myself, to put an end to the bad behavior, and to say, “Do not do that again, or else.” But now my anger is becoming counterproductive.
It doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t undo the past. It doesn’t even elicit an apology; if anything, the other person has used it as an excuse to justify a lack of regret. Worse yet, rage keeps me perpetually frozen in the painful and infuriating moment that I discovered someone I trusted was entirely untrustworthy. As long as I continue feeling it, I continue defining myself as a victim — and more than that, I continue berating myself for not having known, somehow, that I needed to protect myself. That’s corrosive, even more damaging to me in the long run than the original betrayal.
And so I find myself wrestling with the terrifying concept of forgiveness. Yes, terrifying. I know continuing to be good and mad (understandable though it might be) is, as the saying goes, “drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” But my fear is that without it, I have no way to protect myself against a repeat performance.
That’s why I wish I could erase the phrase “forgive and forget” from the language. I think it does us all a huge disservice; it implies that forgiveness equals defenselessness. Forgiving bad behavior — or to phrase it in a way I’m more comfortable with, letting go of anger about it — doesn’t mean accepting it. As a wise friend recently said to me, “You can forgive a scared dog for biting you, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it bite you again.”
If I let go of my anger, am I excusing being treated poorly, or worse yet, agreeing that it was appropriate? Does forgiveness mean I have to pretend it never happened? Does it obligate me to give the other person the chance to hurt me again in exactly the same way?
No. No. And no.
Once you move an untrustworthy person to the periphery of your life, where he can’t do you any further damage, you no longer need the weapon of anger to protect you. Letting go of it is about switching perspective from “things to run away from” to “things to run toward.”
I don’t know precisely how to do that. But I know it’s necessary. And I know it’s possible.
What are your thoughts on forgiveness?
Filed under fears, progress | Comments (10)Travel Tuesdays: the big expenses
Last week I thought I had found an acceptably affordable one-way ticket to London, but this week, when I went to book it, it was gone. After two hours of concerted searching on Booking Buddy, I turned up an acceptable alternative for just $34 more than the first. Having learned my lesson about not letting these things get away, I jumped on it. I was exceedingly pleased with myself as I claimed my free one-way ticket for the flight home using frequent flyer miles — then somewhat less pleased to discover that “free” does not include $118 in taxes and fees.
Whoops!
Mind you, I’m not complaining. I’m still saving about $250 over any round-trip ticket I’ve seen for the dates I need to travel. Nonetheless, the moral is that it’s best to estimate high when you’re deciding how much you can spend, then look for bargains so you come in under budget.
Airfare will always be one of your top two expenses. Lodging is the other. Don’t stint on cleanliness or safety, of course, but be willing to be adventurous to cut costs here — do you really need to drop $200 or more a night on someplace where you’ll mostly be unconscious and thus unable to enjoy it? Probably not.
While I’m in York, I’ll be staying in a largish house on the University of York campus with several other volunteers. We’ll share a kitchen and bathrooms, but we’ll each have a private bedroom. When I leave there, though, I’m heading to London for three days, and I don’t yet know where I’ll lay my head. Time for more research!
In the past, I’ve stayed in a small hotel near Victoria Station, an historic (built 1851) house which offers a special rate on single rooms tucked up under the eaves. These rooms are tiny, with slanted ceilings, dormer windows, twin beds, and shared bathrooms; they’re also a little shabby and can only be reached by climbing four flights of stairs. They were probably the servants’ quarters when the building was a private home. I find them charming — not least because they’re also ridiculously cheap: if you book online, you get an Internet-only special of about $65 a night at current exchange rates, and paying in full in advance knocks off an additional 10%, bringing the per-night cost down to $58.50. In a city as expensive as London, that’s a bargain indeed.
However, I’ll be at the tail end of my trip, and if past experience is any predictor, I’ll be starting to worry about money, so I want to bring my costs down still further. That’s why I’m planning to book a bed in a hostel. I haven’t shared a bedroom since college, but I’ve found a couple of hostels with small dorms and no reputation for party atmosphere, and I plan to invest in good eyeshades and earplugs. This will let me whittle the cost of my lodging for three nights in London down to $30/night — thus almost balancing out the aforementioned taxes and fees from my “free” ticket. As a bonus, the places I’m considering are near both King’s Cross Station, where my train from York arrives, and a tube station on the Piccadilly line, which will take me directly to Heathrow airport when it’s time for me to leave. Location, location, location.
At this point I refer you to this excellent, detailed post by Audi of Fashion for Nerds about saving money on flights and beds. In future posts, I’ll share some further thoughts on the topic, as well as advice on the smaller expenses, like food, entry fees for attractions, and getting around once you’ve reached your destination.
Questions? Experiences? Thoughts?
Filed under Uncategorized, progress | Comments (2)Now on offer
You may have noticed this blog looks a little different lately. There’s an extra something in the right-hand column, something with several photos on it. It’s a widget which, if you click on it, will take you to my new shop on Zazzle.
This is a big step for me. It’s all part of my effort to put my photography out into the world, and I’m nervous and excited about it. At first, I hesitated, because I thought, “What if no one wants to buy?” But half a dozen different people have asked me in the last month where they can buy cards with my work, so maybe someone will! At the very least, I can get some for my own use, right?
I’m gradually stocking the store with greeting cards (5″x7″), folded notecards (4″x5.6″), and postcards (you know, postcard-sized) featuring my best photographs. All the cards are blank so you can write whatever the heck you like to your favorite correspondents. You can also frame the cards, but if you want an actual print, you can contact me through Zazzle or right here on this blog and request one in any size up to 16″x20″.
Filed under Uncategorized, triumphs | Comments (4)Travel Tuesdays: one-way frequent flyer tickets
American, Delta, and United now let frequent flyers book one-way tickets for half the number of miles necessary to book a round trip ticket. But be careful! If you book a one-way award, you’re not getting 50% off a round trip ticket. You’re getting a free trip in one direction. Going the other way is on your dime, and if you’re not careful, that one-way trip may end up costing you as much as a round-trip ticket would have. Do a little shopping before you book both legs on the same airline. It might be cheaper — a lot cheaper — to fly the paid half of your journey on another carrier.
Case in point: I have 30,000 miles on American, enough to cover a one-way trip between the continental US and Europe, which I plan to use for my trip to England later this year. I can’t use the miles on the outbound leg of my trip — there’s no available awards seating for a solid week on either side of the date I need to arrive. By default, therefore, I’m going to be cashing in my miles for my return trip (which is fine; I have a lot more flexibility on dates coming home). But how am I going to get to England in the first place?
I know I can fly into either London Heathrow (LHR) or Manchester (MAN). Both are about two hours from York by train, and if I take a redeye over Saturday night and arrive early Sunday morning, that makes it more than feasible to show up at my lodgings in York in time for my afternoon check-in and orientation. (Alternatively, I could fly in on Saturday, but that would involve the expense and hassle of finding a room for Saturday and then moving lodgings the next day.)
I first checked American’s own fares. A one-way ticket to either LHR or MAN would cost me almost $1000, thus wiping out everything I saved by redeeming miles. Looks like I’ll be taking another airline home.
Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Kayak.com all told me I couldn’t get there from here for less than $1000 — but thanks to Airfare Watchdog, I know I can do better. Time to start digging. I went to Booking Buddy, which searches multiple sites at once and lets you compare the results, apples to apples. Here’s the applesauce that emerged, listed by cost:
A site called Cheap Fare Guru said it could get me to LHR on United or Continental for $871.
CheapAir.com: $859 to LHR on United
Webjet: $787 to MAN on bmi
Priceline: $786 to MAN
CheapoAir: $757 to LHR on “major airline” or $803 to MAN on bmi
TripAdvisor: $747 to LHR on United
And then a site I’d never heard of before, OneTravel, popped up with a quote of $633 to MAN on bmi, taxes and fees included. Now we’re talking!
I’m going to do another search later this week to see if I can whittle it down further, but I think I may have found a winner. Stay tuned.
Filed under Uncategorized, progress | Comment (0)Still not perfect.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. – Voltaire
~~~
Well, hello there. I haven’t made a blog post in far too long, and I have no excuse.
Actually, that’s not true. I do have an excuse. I was procrastinating. And for the strangest of reasons: I was putting off writing a blog post because I really, really wanted to do it.
I’ve spent some time trying to figure out what that’s about — and to my surprise, it turns out to be connected with, yes, fear. I wasn’t too darn busy to get to it. I wasn’t enjoying the pleasure of delayed but inevitable gratification, the way I think happily in the morning about the delicious meal I plan to make that night. I wasn’t using making a blog post as a reward for completing a less enjoyable task. I wasn’t even grasping for ideas; I have half a dozen ideas stacked up and circling like airplanes over O’Hare in bad weather! I was just worried that I’d sit down and write something heartfelt, put it online, and realize nobody was interested.
In other words, I had an attack of perfectionism.
I think a little bit of perfectionism lurks in the heart of all of us. After all, who doesn’t want — even a tiny bit — to be instantly and effortlessly good at everything, and to universal acclaim? But sometimes that desire goes malignant and grows wild. When that happens, it can turn into the compulsive striving and monomaniacal focus of the stereotypical control freak. But it can also do just the opposite and flip into a vicious cycle of “why try?”
Here’s how it works:
I worry about being judged and found inadequate.
so
I think the only alternative to being inadequate is being perfect.
but
I know I can’t be perfect, even at the things I’m very good at indeed.
because
No one is perfect. Even Nobel laureates, Olympic medalists, and great diplomats have failures.
yet
I don’t find that comforting
because
I feel Nobel laureates et al have earned the right to flop sometimes, but I haven’t.
so
I procrastinate, because doing nothing seems safer than exposing myself to criticism for doing something imperfect.
Avoiding doing things because I can’t do them flawlessly is like a baby thinking, “If I can’t skip the awkward toddling bit and go straight to a graceful run, why should I bother trying to stand up at all?”
There’s only one medicine for the “why try?” disease: deliberately choosing to do something in a half-assed way, or at least what I think is half-assed, and see what happens. To my surprise, what I think is “nowhere near good enough” looks just fine to other people. The draft I pounded out in an hour rather than revising every sentence three times? It didn’t come back for revisions. The photos I shot on the fly, snapping five times as many as I ordinarily would have? I nailed a handful of shots I probably would have missed otherwise. The awkward conversation I didn’t allow myself to rehearse in my head for three days straight? I didn’t have to be as eloquent as I thought I did.
And that’s why I’m going to post this right now and not allow myself to go back and tweak it later.
Filed under Uncategorized, fears, progress, quotes | Comments (2)