Forgiveness - The Hardest and Most Important Resolution

Last night I watched the end of Hotel Rwanda with my roommate. Definitely not a happy ending to New Years Day. At the end, even though I only watched the last 15 minutes (I'd seen it before) I was blubbering uncontrollably. It wasn't the cinematic prowess or the exact and wonderful acting in the film - it the fact that is was a true story.

In case you didn't know, Hotel Rwanda is the film version of the "holocaust" that happened in Africa. All around the world, people are dying and hurting, in our own country here in America as well. But we only seem to help others when the tragedy is too big to ignore anymore. You only help a homeless person when they're right in your face with their outstretched hands. It's a growing problem that stems from everyone keeping to themselves and not wanting to take on the burdens of other people when you've got your own. I mean who's got the time right?

There is effort made to exercise to change our appearance, eat better to change our health, even educate ourselves to be smarter. We spend thousands o dollars a year to do these things while there are people in the cold, people without homes, people being massacred all over the world as I type this article out and as you read it.

People may think the only way to stop it is to go in by force and change things which we already seem to be doing in certain areas of the world. Other people ask, well as an individual, how can I do anything? What does the writer here expect us to do about grievous acts taking place in the world? Well, even if you may not believe it, it all starts in your own backyard. It all starts with forgiveness.

I make it sound simple, yeah? Have you as a reader forgiven Michael Richards for his racial retorts? Have you forgiven Michael Jackson for his alleged crimes? Let's go one step further? Could you forgive Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler? Sounds extreme doesn't it?

Well the only way to move on as probably victims of crimes realize, is to forgive the crime that the person has done. When you cannot forgive, these people have gotten the best of you. They have drug you down into the depths with them, making you think about them for the rest of your life. It fills your soul and never lets go of you - this thing we call vengeance.

We all have it inside us and it must be squashed like a bug with forgiveness. If people were quicker to say 'I'm sorry, excuse me, or I forgive you" instead of "Get out of the way, you don't deserve my forgiveness, I hate you", we might have a better understanding of each other and live in a more peaceful society.

So make your New Year's resolution something that only takes a clear state of mind, patience and virtue- learn to forgive. Learn to treat people with just a little more respect. Learn to understand that when people crap all over you, you can be the bigger person and say "It's ok, I forgive you." You can walk away with a sense of happiness in your heart instead of anger at the world. Now wouldn't that be a much better year than last year?

How does this help all those people who are being hurt and tortured in places we don't like to think about? presently, it won't help at all. But if we all get together and say No More!, maybe it will spread. One person can chnage the world. It's happened before and will happen again. Wouldn't it be cool if that person were you?