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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Short Stories for Teachers

Cultivate the Habit of Forgiveness
By:Prem Guragain

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."-Mahatma Gandhi

What is the first thought that comes to our mind when we think of the word "forgiveness" ? Let´s explore on it. For many of us, it is about some saints or great human beings in the history. Every religion, culture and society has its own story about forgiveness. When I was growing up, I would hear elder people giving examples of great human beings who had forgiving heart. As these words got repeated, I wanted to know how one could cultivate such a forgiving heart. In our culture where I grew up, we would not talk to our closed friends and family members for long time, even for a small wrong that was done to us, knowingly or unknowingly. It is as if, the person who did wrong, had to ask for apology and then only, we would resume our relationship.

When we realize about it, this is so obvious as "to spend time thinking about hurting someone is to let that person occupy our mind, without paying any rent." Just pause for a moment and think about it again. When we spend time thinking about someone who did wrong to us or if we don´t like that person, we spend our time, energy and we don´t even know if that person really knows that we are sending negative thoughts toward him or her. As scientists have proved that our brain does twenty thousand trillion calculations per second, why not use it to solve problems that are significant, instead of sitting together with some more negative minded people and gossip about the other human beings of topics that make no creative sense at the end !

I always believe on having goals about the future so that we rarely have spare time to go back in the past and dwell on negative things..It is good to learn from past mistakes and not to repeat the same mistake again. To carry loads of regrets, unforgiving moments, hatred, jealousy, negative feelings towards others, criticizing and condemning, harm us more than anybody else. It is already heavy to carry the loads daily and especially, if we carry the loads from the past, it becomes very hard to think right and be productive now. I had read about this Buddhist monk who was returning back to monastery with senior monk. While they were about to cross the river that was flooded, senior monk saw a woman who was waiting for help to cross the river. The senior monk offered her help and carried her and took her on the other side of the river. While he reached the other side of the river, he went his way back to monastery with the young monk. This young monk had so many questions in his mind when he saw this, "why he touched the woman ?", "are we not supposed to stay away from woman" etc. etc. When they reached the monastery, the young monk was so disturbed with this thought and after almost 12 hours or so, he could not stop thinking about it and went to the senior monk to ask about what had happened. The senior monk, with a smile on his face, replied, "Young man, I had left her on the bank of the river long time ago and stopped thinking about it but it seems as if you are still carrying her."

In life, however great thoughts we keep on thinking every day, there comes some time when it becomes very hard to let go of many unhappiness thoughts about our childhood and our youth. It then becomes just philosophical to think about forgiving someone who had hurt us in the past but once we know the benefits we get by forgiveness, it becomes easier to practice it. When we take our time and make a list of all the hurts we think we had gone through in our life, it becomes much easier to forgive that person or circumstances and move ahead, towards more productive life. Researchers have proved that once we go through the list or hurts in the past, look at them for the last time, tear it apart and either burn it or flush it in the toilet. From that moment, we can live a life of no regrets and even somebody tries to bring that up in our conversation, we can change the topic or with a great smile, say, "don´t worry about it, life is good."

When we read about Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and so many great personalities in history, one common attribute towards them had been: forgiveness. By cultivating the habit of forgiveness, we benefit ourselves greatly and live in harmony with our loved ones, friends and everyone who come in contact with us daily. Next time, before a destructive word comes out of our mouth towards somebody, let´s think "Is this person paying the rent who is occupying the space in my mind ?" And if the answer is "NO", let´s send good thoughts towards him or her and lead a peaceful life that benefits all of us. The most destructive things have always been created because of people not getting in the habit of thinking positively about everything in life. The media has corrupted many intelligent minds and rarely, people take few minutes in a day to think about positive things that are happening in their life.

It just takes a few minutes a day, to analyze our daily activities and see if we had hurt somebody with our words or actions and be humble enough to apologize in person and move on. We have no way of knowing how long we are occupying this space on earth and if we knew that, I don´t think anybody would like to hurt others and waste time criticizing and complaining about our fellow human beings. It is good to have discussion and come to a positive conclusion about certain issue but just venting poison out is not productive. People who can´t forgive, go through so much health challenges and many of them have mental problems too. I wished these individuals would realize the spiritual power that is hidden in forgiveness. We can learn from others and cultivate a "forgiving heart." It definitely brings so much happiness, satisfaction, creative thoughts, harmony and great feeling because forgiving is a good karma and karma never goes unnoticed. It always produces fruits of its kind. We can show the forgiving habit in a small way starting now, in action as it is said, "Your action speaks so loud that I can´t hear what you say." By developing forgiving nature, we lead a healthy, happy, peaceful life and can create a great place for us, our children as well as for future generation.

-Prem Guragain, Anaheim, CA
By profession, I am a computer engineer but have been writing for a long time. My articles have bee published in many online sites: New York Times, American Chronicle, World Sentinel, California Chronicle, DC Nepal, Nepalmother.com, Hamrosamaj.net, Nepalhorizons.com, Yahoo, Google etc. I like to write about motivation, positive mental attitude, success, creating good habits, spirituality, health etc. I like to read positive mental attitude books. Few of them are: How to win friends and influence people, Think and Grow Rich, Magic of thinking BIG, Five Love Languages, John Maxwell's Leadership books, The Richest Man in Babylon, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Greatest Success in the world etc. I love to travel, make new friends and be a positive impact player in someone's life in a positive way. I love this quote, "For the world, you may be just one person but for one person, you may be the WORLD."






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