Being Loved

I’ve known several people that have gotten mad about a real or even a perceived slight and made a conscious decision to stay angry — for years and sometimes even forever.  People make mistakes.  People say dumb stuff and do hurtful things.  Sometimes those things are intentional, often they are not.  Staying mad doesn’t do anyone much good but it sure goes a long way to foster resentment.  To me, harboring that anger seems especially detrimental when it goes on within a household, as often happens.  A man feels that his masculinity has been threatened, a woman takes offense over an unspoken or misunderstood statement or maybe something left undone.  Sometimes it involves the old men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus thing and possibly the person didn’t even know that there was an expectation to be met. The list goes on and on. I read something powerful in one of David Richo’s books recently.  It really resonated for me and I glommed onto the sentiment immediately — to be forgiven is to be loved.