I've Never Forgiven Anyone

Forgiveness, in many traditions, is held up as a fundamental virtue. We are told to love our enemies and, when we feel hurt or slighted, to take the high road, or "let things go."

It’s interesting how often our struggles in life are followed by advice from others about what we should do differently.

If simply changing our actions was the answer, then our solution for sadness and worry would be to just smile more and not think about negative things so much. “Turn that frown upside down and think positive,” ought to make it all better, right?

I don’t know about you, but advice like that at times when I was feeling emotionally charged would tend to heat things up more than cool them down.

Taking the high road isn’t such a noble perspective either; it's actually a condescending one. 

Choosing to "be the bigger person" means looking down on another from a place of perceived moral authority. To forgive someone from that position of superiority isn't graceful at all; more like a court handing down a pardon.

It doesn’t resolve the hurt; it overrides it.

So how do we choose forgiveness?

We don’t; however, it is achievable.

One of the benefits of being in your 50s is that you’ve collected enough data to see, if you choose, some distinguishable yet undeniable patterns. 

What had for decades been a liability of nagging, agonizing reminders of past hurts and perceived failures slowly turns into an asset called hindsight. 

As the band Everlast once wrote:

I've seen a rich man beg
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie

The song is called What It’s Like, and that is indeed what it’s like.

What once felt like endless pages of painful, contradictory memories from a dark time has now transformed into a deeply comforting book of wisdom, bringing the journey full circle.

I understand and accept much more of my past than I once did, seeing the twists and turns as necessary to knowing what I know now. The feeling that results from that clarity is what we call forgiveness. 

That forgiveness is not a choice per se. It’s a byproduct of acceptance and understanding.

American writer James Baldwin once wrote: “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

We all have a few chapters that we wouldn't want read out loud. But rather than accepting and trying to understand what happened, we often choose anger and justification instead.

We do this not only with others, but with ourselves as well. Resentment and guilt are close cousins. 

It’s ironic, if not hypocritical, how, with our own mistakes, we become very good lawyers, and with others’ mistakes, we become even better judges. We so want to be understood and forgiven for our mistakes, without ever taking the time to understand the missteps of others. We demand grace for our own ignorance, yet pronounce life sentences on others for theirs.

When we feel hurt, of course our natural response is to protect ourselves from the pain it brings. But eventually we need to see and feel that our fortress of security eventually becomes a prison of isolation. 

In my years of self-reflection and coaching, I've found that when we strip away the story of what should or could have happened and begin telling the truth about what did, more often than not the behaviour, whether an action or inaction, ours or theirs, was rooted in fear.

Whether we/they stayed too long or not long enough, said too much or didn’t say enough, did too much or didn’t do enough, I have yet to find an answer to any conflict that wasn’t rooted in fear.

Fear requires fences. When we don’t understand someone or something, we feel a guard is necessary for our protection. As we begin to understand, the value of that guard diminishes and will eventually go away. 

It’s important to remember that accepting isn’t condoning, and understanding isn’t agreement. It’s not a waving of a white flag and surrendering; it’s reclaiming the power to choose what comes next.

Forgiveness isn't a gift we bestow on others, or even ourselves following a conflict. It's the quiet relief that happens naturally when we accept what happened and understand the fear that created it.

Give And Let Give

I think we’re all familiar with the saying that it’s better to give than receive.

But what if it’s not always better?

Many years ago, I had a friend stay with me for a few months. He was going through a difficult time and needed a place to stay. It was, of course, my pleasure to help in any way I could.

Towards the end of his stay, he walked past my office one morning and saw me working away, and visibly stressed.

With a chipper voice, he leaned in and asked how I was doing. Without even looking up, I gave him the standard, "I'm good, thanks."

He wasn't buying it.

"No, you're not. Talk to me. Maybe I can help."

I politely brushed him off again, saying I was fine.

Then, to my surprise, the next words out of his mouth were: "You know, you're a selfish prick sometimes!"

Great, I thought. This is exactly what I need right now.

As anger began to stir, I fired back, "How the hell am I being selfish right now?"

Leaning over my desk, quite sternly, I might add, he asked, "How many times have you helped me?"

"Many times," I replied.

"And how did it feel each time you helped me?"

"It felt good, of course."

"Exactly!" he said. "And right now I have an opportunity to feel that way by helping you, and you won't let me. You selfish prick."

He turned to walk away.

"Stop," I said, as my mind reeled and the weight of what he'd just said began to sink in.

Damn... he's right.

I swallowed my pride.

"OK," I said. "Close the door and let's talk."

As I shared what I was carrying, the pressure I'd been holding onto immediately began to lift. My friend didn't magically solve my problem, but he gave me a different perspective that has stayed with me ever since.

His words also forced me to confront something I'd never considered before.

I had always thought refusing help was a sign of strength. That I was protecting other people from my problems. That I shouldn't burden anyone.

In reality, I was denying someone else the chance to do what I had always enjoyed doing myself.

To help.

If you've ever supported a friend, donated to a cause, volunteered your time or simply listened to someone who needed to talk, you'll know there is a quiet satisfaction that comes from being useful. We often think of giving as something we do for others, but the truth is it gives something back to us as well. It creates connection and meaning.

When we refuse an offer of help because of pride, independence or simply our discomfort in receiving it, we unintentionally interrupt that exchange.

American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou captured it beautifully when she wrote, "When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed."

So, is it better to give than receive?

Sometimes.

But allowing someone to help you can also be an act of generosity. It gives them the opportunity to experience the same sense of purpose, connection and fulfilment that you've probably experienced yourself.

Like any meaningful change, it's best to start small.

Most of us won't be asked to share our deepest struggles today.

But chances are we'll receive a compliment.

If I asked you which you're more comfortable with, giving a compliment or receiving one, how many of you would choose the latter? (Cue the crickets.)

The next time someone tells you that you did a great job, that you look nice or that they appreciate something you've done, notice your first instinct. If it's to dismiss it, explain it away or immediately return the compliment, pause.

Take a breath.

Smile.

And simply say, "Thank you."

Because sometimes the most generous thing you can do isn't giving.

It's giving someone else the chance to.

To Be Or Not To Be

I’ve always been fascinated by how eloquently people throughout history have distilled some of life’s greatest complexities into a single, profound sentence.

Put another way, I'm a quotes guy.

In 1913, Mohandas Gandhi wrote: "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... A wonderful thing it is, and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."

Many decades later, author Arleen Lorrance paraphrased this passage into the much more familiar phrase, "Be the change you want to see," a quote that is still often attributed to Gandhi.

I first came across those words more than 30 years ago, and they almost instantly became a foundational pillar for me, both personally and professionally. At the time, I was struggling with feelings of anger, judgment, and isolation, and this simple sentence made perfect sense.

Like a compass, it became my due north, guiding me toward decisions that were more aligned with the peace and contentment I felt were missing from my life. It reminded me that while I wanted others to treat me with more understanding, kindness, and love, I had not always been offering those same things in return.

And so began my practice of being kind, caring, and respectful, diligently trying to "be the change" as a way to encourage that same treatment among others and, hopefully, toward myself as well.

It definitely made a difference. Some of those earlier feelings of separation began to ease. 

Yet before long, I would find myself slipping back into old patterns and abandoning the very principles I had committed to.

Like most things in life, the epiphany turned out to be much easier than the application. Still, I carried on. 

With every stumble came quicker recognition, and each recommitment became a little shorter than the last. But it still required an exhausting amount of energy at times. It was effective, yet something about it continued to feel incomplete.

This back and forth continued for more than a decade until one glorious morning, while brushing my teeth, the rubber finally hit the road.

I was replaying some of the previous day's events, what I liked to call my "roadkill," and happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I berated myself with every brush stroke, mercilessly criticizing my less-than-desirable reactions to what had transpired.

Staring back at me was the missing piece of the puzzle that had eluded me for years. Almost instantly, I understood why I had never been able to fully realize the power of those words.

I had practiced kindness, caring, and respect with almost everyone I encountered, except for one person who, based on the evidence, I didn't believe deserved it.

And that person was me.

American writer and teacher Jack Kornfield once wrote: "If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."

For years, I had struggled to apply the idea of being the change I wished to see because my goal had been, unknowingly, transactional in nature. I was doing the change, but I wasn't being it.

My kindness was a kind of commerce. The reason these exchanges of love and respect felt so necessary was because I had not been giving them to myself first. And when those exchanges weren't returned, my demand for them only increased.

It's not that my approach had been wrong. It was simply incomplete.

If someone else had shared that exact same story with me that day, my first response would have been, "It's okay." Yet I couldn't seem to extend that same grace to myself.

There is a difference between demanding respect from others and commanding it. The distinction is subtle. Many people would struggle to articulate it, but they can feel it when they encounter it.

It is the quiet confidence that comes from treating yourself with kindness, compassion, and respect.

As we fill our own cups, our dependence on others to do it for us begins to diminish. And when our cup runneth over, it naturally spills onto those we care about and, ultimately, the rest of the world as well.

So, to be or not to be? For me, the question has been asked and answered.

How about you?

Two Ply

If I could magically take you back in time to when you were 16, 25, or even 35 again, what would you do differently when you got there?

Most of us can immediately conjure up a specific memory, or four, and almost instantly see the forks in the road where we should have made a left instead of a right. It’s also easy to imagine our current upgraded selves stepping in to right those many wrongs and save the day.

There is a critical caveat to this thought experiment, however, that I forgot to mention.

When I take you back, you don’t get to take the intervening years with you.

Without the gift of hindsight in place, the answer to what we’d do differently becomes simple:

Nothing.

We would make the same choice with the same limited perspective and raw emotions we had the first time.

Wisdom isn’t a replacement for the past; it is a direct product of it. We didn’t grow despite those choices; we grew because of them.

Although we live in an age where the ability to know anything we want is everywhere, we seem to understand very little. Information is everywhere, yet wisdom is nowhere.

So why isn't knowledge enough?

Growing up, my father would tell me to "measure twice, cut once" more times than I could count. A solid piece of knowledge that I can vividly remember turning into wisdom, when I measured once, ruining a board, and sheepishly realizing that no amount of further cuts was going to make that board any longer.

Wisdom and regret are really the same story, just told by different narrators. If we’re not careful with the story we tell, our perceived failures can accumulate over time and turn into a filing cabinet of proof that we can no longer be trusted to make the next move.

So, how do we begin to turn our trail of perceived roadkill into the yellow brick road?

Consider this example, one I think most of us can relate to:

An acquaintance or colleague at work or school asks for a favour, usually in the form of money.

Your first instinct, a split-second gut reaction, is no.

And then the "sell" begins.

“Come on, I thought we were friends! Remember when I helped you out with that email and then bought you those fries? Look, I’ll even write you an IOU.” I’ll have it back to you by Friday, I swear.”

And the negotiation with yourself begins. You weigh the social pressure against the potential embarrassment of being "the mean guy” and eventually overrule your gut and hand over the money.

"Next Friday, right?"

"Next Friday!" they reply.

We all know the ending. Friday shows up, and they don't.

What’s the first thing you say to yourself?

"I knew it!"

And that is when our mind usually plays its most devious trick by saying, "See? You can't trust your yourself,” and then proceeds to file that memory into the cabinet.

But when we slow down for just a second and take a closer look, you’ll see that your instinct was actually correct and said "no" right from the start.

And that’s the switch. Not a hope or affirmation, but a clear, data-driven fact.

The problem wasn’t that you couldn't trust yourself at that time; it’s simply that you didn't.

Muhammad Ali once said, “If a man is the same at 50 as he was at 20, he has wasted 30 years of his life.

Much of our societal friction comes from the impossible demand that everyone be on the same page. Although we’re all part of the same book, we must recognize that we are all in very different chapters.

The young are on their way up, trying to build wisdom and confidence, and the old are on their way down, just trying to find some peace and contentment.

Our discord lies in trying to convince ourselves that we were never like that, while they, sometimes quite vocally, declare they’ll never be like us.

The reality? We were like that, and they will be like us, at least to some degree.

As the 19th-century French proverb goes, if you aren't a liberal at 20, you have no heart; and if you aren't a conservative at 40, you have no head.

The world is going to change, and you will, too, hopefully with greater wisdom and less regret.

So to my young friends, I say, tell the truth and embrace your perceived mistakes to extract the necessary wisdom so you can move forward with greater strength and confidence.

And to my older friends, I say the same, so you can move forward with greater peace of mind.

Serenity Now

When I think of the word "serenity," I almost always think of Frank Costanza. Those who know me well will be rolling their eyes, as Seinfeld analogies are pretty much a daily occurrence for me.

I immediately picture Frank in the backseat of George’s car, head tilted back, emphatically shouting, “Serenity now!” with his arms outstretched high in the air.

It’s a phrase my friends and I often say half-jokingly in moments of frustration, almost as a strategy or methodology to create peace in a stressful situation, but behind it lies a deeper truth that many of us can spend a lifetime trying to understand.

When I look back on my life honestly, I can see that there have often been strong tendencies to manage certain situations and outcomes so that things go the way I believe they should.

Ya, a clever way to say I’ve had some control issues. Pretty sure I’m not alone on this one.

And for a long time, it truly felt feasible.

There were many moments I can point to that prove my efforts paid off, where persistence led to results, and things eventually bent just enough to match my expectations.

I can also see now, in hindsight, that those choices came with a hidden cost.

They were quietly reinforcing an unconscious belief that if I could control some things, I could eventually control everything.

I think we all reach this crossroad at some stage in life.

A moment when we begin to notice that no matter how hard we try, certain things won’t go our way. People don’t behave the way we want them to, outcomes don’t align with our plans, and life refuses to follow our script.

What once felt like determination and achievement now feels like struggle and frustration, and the harder we press, the more resistance we encounter.

There’s a well-known prayer written almost a century ago by Reinhold Niebuhr that reads:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Often, as we encounter things we don’t like, be it a difficult person, an unexpected outcome, or a frustrating situation, our instinct is to immediately fix it, change it, or make it different.

But what if that instinct is not only part of the problem, it’s what perpetuates it?

What if our stress in situations like these doesn’t come from what’s actually happening, but from our refusal to accept first that it is happening?

What I find most interesting about the Serenity Prayer is not just what it says, but the order in which it says it.

It begins with acceptance.

Not action. Not change. Not effort.

Acceptance.

But that’s not how most of us typically operate.

We will fight, resist and argue until we get nowhere, and then, we will finally surrender. 

That process can take minutes, hours, or even days. Sometimes, it can take years.

What if we surrendered first?

Austrian-born neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher Viktor Frankl once wrote, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

In these moments of perceived opposition, I think we often fail to recognize that as we continue to feel irritated by someone who refuses to change, we are also refusing to change.

The truth is that while we can influence some aspects of our lives, if our peace ultimately depends on everything going our way, then that’s not peace at all; it’s control.

And if we have a desire in life not to feel controlled, then our solution cannot be to control.

Acceptance is often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean agreement or approval, and it certainly doesn’t mean giving up. It simply means seeing reality as it is, before deciding what, if anything, can be done about it.

And that shift alone can change everything.

I can now see that what I thought were “successes” in controlling different situations or outcomes weren’t really successes at all; in fact, they were a regression.

What I thought was a goal to achieve a life of peace devoid of chaos was actually a desire for serenity, a state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled inside, regardless of what is transpiring outside.

It’s an inside job, and acceptance is the key, not in giving up on what will be, but a temporary surrender to what is in that moment.

Once that state is achieved, we are now free to choose what might be.

Mind Your Change

I suspect I’m not alone in feeling that the first hint of spring over the past few days sparked a joyful urge to get moving again.

Almost instantly, I wanted to get outside, go for a walk, swing a golf club, clean my bike, car or anything else that would require more physical effort than I had expended over the last few frigid months.

The next morning, however, my 58-year-old body reminded me that winter’s dormancy had quietly changed it in ways I hadn’t noticed.

That reminder was pain.

It seemed that in my puppy dog-like exuberance, I had forgotten the golden rule of any new burst of activity; when a long period of inactivity ends, there’s one important step before a new action begins.

Stretch. Stretch. Stretch.

Our bodies are often a great reminder that even when we leave things alone, change is always occurring.

It’s not so much that my muscles weren’t changing as it was how they were changing, and in what direction. They were shrinking, becoming stiffer and more rigid from the neglect of months of inactivity.

Our minds and hearts are really no different.

I was reminded of that toward the end of last year in my coaching practice.

Throughout much of 2025, I began noticing a pattern.

Clients were seeking new timelines and a different pace, with shorter sessions, more follow-up and support tailored to their evolving needs.

With what I believed was a 20-year track record of success, I found myself resisting. I clung to a comfortable mindset backed by results that had worked for a very long time.  

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I kept telling myself.

Meanwhile, the data kept piling up, strongly suggesting that while it may not be broke, it’s definitely starting to crack.

The world was changing, and I was being asked to change with it.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my mind and heart had slowly begun to atrophy.

Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is often summarized this way: it is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change.

Resilience isn’t really about strength or intellect.

It’s about our ability to bend.

I could easily blame a cold, hard winter for my lack of exercise and the soreness that followed that first burst of activity.

But the truth is, winter didn’t simply happen to me; I was an active participant.

Or in this case, an inactive one.

I could have exercised; I just didn’t.

My struggles in coaching last year came from a similar place.

I resisted the clear signals that what once had worked no longer did. I was clinging to how I thought things should be rather than paying attention to how they actually were.

To move forward, I needed to see that, feel it, and accept it.

And that’s the stretch.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Staying the same is a myth. Our bodies, minds, and hearts are always changing. Even when we dig in and resist, we’re still changing; we’re just becoming more rigid.

Change is inevitable, but direction is optional.

We can dig in and grow brittle, or we can stretch and become more adaptable.

The choice is ours.

This newsletter is the result of one of those stretches, a stretch that I will admit was quite uncomfortable, but one that has renewed my connection to my clients and to my craft.

In this Year of the Horse, I feel revitalized and back in the saddle.

It’s exciting (and a little terrifying.)

Giddyup!