Mending fences (#1424)

A lot of life is like this, mending fences. It has occurred to me that most all of us spend the first part of our lives in some chaos and then the rest of our lives dealing with the aftermath of that chaos. Which is to say that we make mistakes that seem to follow us wherever we go. Nothing new under the sun here but that it is part of our lives is what needs to be recognized and dealt with. What I have found through some wise counsel is that when I forgive those who have made a mess within my life I often find that regardless of whether others forgive me of the messes I have made in their lives, I am well and good for being open and honest about my own mistakes. The mending of fences analogy starts with me and as long as I continue to find ways in which to be a better person and mitigate the mistakes of my past, my life is rewarded with a renewed sense of honor and decency that I had previously lost. No doubt, most of us are our own worst critics and for me that is absolutely true. I have to forgive myself long before I ask anyone else to forgive me. This is the protocol regardless of the varying degree of harm we may have done. The process is still the same. Find a way to forgive yourself and then give others a chance to forgive you as well. Life goes on and that we are imperfect souls should not stop us from trying to better ourselves. The older I get the more I see how petty I have been about less than obvious offenses that had been perpetrated against me. How so are the rest of at holding grudges or putting on the face of superiority when we are secretly or otherwise guilty of the same offenses or worse? Life is too short to be less than what we truly are, which is to say a work in progress that never ends while we live.