Striving Towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Forgiveness isn’t about excusing what someone did; it’s about freeing yourself from the pain so it no longer controls you.

This sentence has two parts, and both matter.

Part 1: Forgiveness isn’t excusing what someone did

Many people resist forgiving because they think it means saying:

• “What you did was okay.”
• “It didn’t really hurt me.”
• “You don’t have to face any consequences.”
• “We can go back to how things were.”

Forgiveness means none of those things. The wrong was still wrong. You can forgive someone and still:

• Hold them accountable
• Keep your distance from them
• Set boundaries
• Never trust them again in the same way

Think of it this way: forgiveness is a decision about your feelings, not a verdict on their behavior.

Part 2: It’s about freeing yourself from the pain

When you don’t forgive, the hurt doesn’t stay in the past. It keeps living inside you. You replay the moment, rehearse what you should have said, feel your stomach tighten when their name comes up. In a way, the person who hurt you is still hurting you, every day, even if they’ve moved on and forgotten all about it.

There’s a well-known saying: holding on to resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to suffer. The anger mostly harms you.

Forgiveness is like setting down a heavy bag you’ve been carrying around. The memory stays, but the weight is gone.

For example,

• A friend who betrayed your trust. A close friend shared a secret you told them. Forgiving them doesn’t mean you have to tell them secrets again or even stay friends. It means you stop spending your energy being angry about it, so you can enjoy new friendships without that bitterness.
• An unfair boss. A former boss treated you badly and you left the job. Years later, you still get angry thinking about them. Forgiveness means letting go of that anger so it stops stealing your peace, even though they were clearly in the wrong.

What “no longer controls you” looks like

You know forgiveness is working when:

• You can think about what happened without your heart racing
• The person’s name doesn’t ruin your mood
• You stop replaying the event over and over
• You make choices based on what you want, not on old hurt

To sum it up: You don’t forgive because they deserve it. You forgive because you deserve peace.