Sometimes I think the hardest part of life are those moments when you meant no harm but caused it anyway. This happens to us all, and, truly, I think it's more tragic than causing harm and meaning to. At least when you cause the harm, you are fully aware of your actions. Things turn out as you intended.
This happens all the time. We move at the wrong time and step on someone's toe (or a cat's paw). We don't receive messages and don't find out we were supposed to call someone. We get distracted and miss the vital aspect of a conversation. We stay within ourselves when someone needed us to come out and play with them. Really needed us.
Are these things our fault?
Perhaps not. We can't always pay attention. We can't always see everything in front of us. Most of us, as much as we wished otherwise, are not great empathizers, not even really all that good at being sympathizers. Often we grew weary of conversation or others. We don't mean to. It just happens. It happens a lot.
Even if it's not our fault people still get hurt from it. You may not mean any harm by looking away from the road as you drive, but if you hit someone, they're still injured. They may even be dead. All from your moment of neglect.
Can we always be vigilant about how are actions are affecting other people? No. We can try to be more so . . .sometimes we'll even manage to. But the rest of the time, we won't. And we can either accept that and try to live accordingly or drive ourselves insane trying to be perfect.
I hurt people and in almost every case, I never mean to hurt them. See, even saying that sounds bad. It almost sounds better for you to say, "I hurt people and I always mean for it to happen." Hell, half the time, that's what they believe anyway.
No matter what others believe though, we always know the truth of our actions or our inaction. I think most of the time, we truly don't mean to hurt others. So when we realize they are hurt, we do feel bad about it. We are sorry it happened.
People can get so shitty when you tell them you're sorry. They act like you don't mean it, because maybe they believe you think you didn't do anything wrong or that you just don't care.
I think that's sad.
I have a friend who tells me sometimes that they are sorry for what just happened. I always nod and say little in return. It's not that I'm upset with them and it's not that I don't believe them. I always believe this friend because in almost every case, the reason this person is apologizing because they know they hurt me and they truly didn't mean to.
The reason I'm quiet is because while they are sorry and I do forgive them, I'm usually still emotionally raw about the situation. You can forgive someone and still be mad about what they did. I'm also usually quiet because I know they didn't do this on purpose. It's just their nature. If I didn't accept their nature and their flaws willingly, I'd just choose not to be around them.
I would never expect them to say "I won't do it again" because I know they will. And this is okay because it's nothing violent or wrong. It's just one of those little moments that happen between people who spend a lot of time with each other. In fact, I know they will hurt me again and not do it on purpose. That's just part of life.
I think one of the key factors in choosing people to be around hinges on these ideas. We should always choose to be around people who accept us as flawed humans, who understand that we will fail them and hurt them, who understand that most of the time, we didn't hurt them on purpose, and who will then forgive us, knowing full well that we'll hurt them again.
Understand, I'm not talking about large transgressions. I'm not saying stay with someone who hits you or runs up your credit cards or makes you sick. And I am certainly not saying to stay with someone who is willingly making you miserable.
I'm talking about the instances when someone said the wrong thing at the wrong time and made you cry. I'm talking about the time when someone yelled at you because they needed to vent and you were the person standing there. I'm talking about the person who ignored you because they just couldn't pay attention to the conversation anymore. I'm talking about the person who sneezed on you and got you sick, but sneezed on you because they just happened to accidentally get too close.
I think Bob Marley put it best when he said, "The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for."
Sometimes the suffering is small but often. Sometimes it grates on our nerves. Despite that, the person is probably still worth keeping around, especially if they choose to suffer for you as well.
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