One step further today. Yesterday – love is not easily angered. Today – love keeps no record of wrong. Oh boy.
The two go hand in hand, actually. People like me who blow up at the slightest issue tend to be really great at keeping track of exactly how many times that’s happened, too. It’s one thing to feel angry and learn to curb it if it’s not a necessary time. It’s an even greater thing to be able to put it all aside. To toss the memory as far away as possible and never return to it again. Never hold onto it for ammunition. Never keep it around for leverage. Dispose of it. Fully.
This is a tough one for me because I’m a competitor. I like being in the lead. And sometimes I’m willing to do whatever it takes to retain the lead. If it means I have to pull out all the stops and remind others of what they’ve done in the past to now land them in spots behind me, I’ll do it. Yuck. That’s not a good quality to have.
I’m trying really hard to view this experiment in learning to love as it applies to my daily life. How it affects the way I view my co-workers, my friends, my family, the students I work with, and the general public – even the Wal-Mart general public. But I have to admit that this time, I’m viewing it from the way I behaved with my ex-boyfriend. I was the classic keeper of the books for the two of us, and looking back on that now, I feel absolutely terrible about it.
I love to journal – and I love the record it keeps of my life. I love being able to look back and see what happened – when it happened – and relive all those memories. But for me, the bad thing is that reading a 2 sentence paragraph can bring back an entire situation in vivid color and sound. So if I keep a record of the wrongs done to me, all I have to do is read my journal notes, and all those emotions flood back my way.
I’ve been blessed with a good memory for detail like that. I can’t remember important things to save my life, but with stories along the way, I have a great memory. And I doube I’ll ever be able to change that about myself, short of getting some sort of memory loss disorder. So there may not be a way for me to forget the wrongs.
But there is a way for me to throw those thoughts as far from me as I can when they pop up in my brain. I can choose to not use them against others as I tended to do back in the day with my relationship.
Maybe there’s a key word in this one too. Maybe the key is keep. Maybe the record of wrongs exists because it’s impossible to forget it. But I don’t have to keep it. I can choose to toss it.
The two go hand in hand, actually. People like me who blow up at the slightest issue tend to be really great at keeping track of exactly how many times that’s happened, too. It’s one thing to feel angry and learn to curb it if it’s not a necessary time. It’s an even greater thing to be able to put it all aside. To toss the memory as far away as possible and never return to it again. Never hold onto it for ammunition. Never keep it around for leverage. Dispose of it. Fully.
This is a tough one for me because I’m a competitor. I like being in the lead. And sometimes I’m willing to do whatever it takes to retain the lead. If it means I have to pull out all the stops and remind others of what they’ve done in the past to now land them in spots behind me, I’ll do it. Yuck. That’s not a good quality to have.
I’m trying really hard to view this experiment in learning to love as it applies to my daily life. How it affects the way I view my co-workers, my friends, my family, the students I work with, and the general public – even the Wal-Mart general public. But I have to admit that this time, I’m viewing it from the way I behaved with my ex-boyfriend. I was the classic keeper of the books for the two of us, and looking back on that now, I feel absolutely terrible about it.
I love to journal – and I love the record it keeps of my life. I love being able to look back and see what happened – when it happened – and relive all those memories. But for me, the bad thing is that reading a 2 sentence paragraph can bring back an entire situation in vivid color and sound. So if I keep a record of the wrongs done to me, all I have to do is read my journal notes, and all those emotions flood back my way.
I’ve been blessed with a good memory for detail like that. I can’t remember important things to save my life, but with stories along the way, I have a great memory. And I doube I’ll ever be able to change that about myself, short of getting some sort of memory loss disorder. So there may not be a way for me to forget the wrongs.
But there is a way for me to throw those thoughts as far from me as I can when they pop up in my brain. I can choose to not use them against others as I tended to do back in the day with my relationship.
Maybe there’s a key word in this one too. Maybe the key is keep. Maybe the record of wrongs exists because it’s impossible to forget it. But I don’t have to keep it. I can choose to toss it.
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