Growing up, I couldn’t help but hold grudges against people who I felt wronged me. Even now, it is difficult to let go of a situation or person who hurts me. But it is harder to constantly dwell on the past and let it consume my time. Holding onto grudges hurts me more than it hurts anyone else. There is peace in forgiveness or at least indifference and that is why I focus on the art of letting go.
The first step to letting go is realizing that no matter what you do, you cannot please everyone. It is impossible to do everything right and even if you do, people will still find a reason to judge you. Also, it is not your job to please everyone.
“A friend to all is a friend to none.” Don’t let what others think of you determine your actions. If you are always worried about doing things to make others happy, you will neglect yourself and the things you believe in. If something happens and you are too occupied with someone’s opinion of you to stand up for yourself, you are betraying yourself. To do right by yourself, you need to let go of the need to please.
Secondly, evaluate what you are spending your time on. Life is too short to waste your time thinking about the past. Of course, introspection and reflection are good things and necessary for self-growth. However, constantly looking back and rehashing your mistakes or worrying about what others might be saying about you is not beneficial.
You control what you give your energy to and the best thing to do is give your all to the present moment. Let go of anxieties of the past and worries about things you cannot control in the future.
Finally, put things into perspective. You are the only person you are going to be stuck with forever. Hopefully, you have amazing people by your side that you will carry with you throughout your life. But, at the end of the day, you must be able to live with yourself, and it is important that you are someone you love. Holding hate in your heart for anyone will inevitably make you feel worse about yourself down the line. If you want to be happy with yourself, turn petty hate to indifference or, if possible, forgiveness.
You know who you are; why would you care what people who don’t truly know you think about you? If you make a mistake, own up to it. But people are irrational beings, and we often get angry at others because we are angry at ourselves. Sometimes when someone hurts us, we need to give them grace because it is not us that they are really mad at. As long as you know who you are and what you stand for, no one can take that away from you.