Many of us have been wronged either on purpose, or by accident. These wrong doings may have been by someone we love, an acquaintance and sometimes by a perfect stranger. The question which I have set out to hopefully answer or simply find more insight on, is whether or not us as human beings, have to learn how to forgive or if our hearts and minds are hard wired to do this for us innately.
As a child, I remember hearing one particular phrase being thrown around more often than not when an adult would intervene in an altercation. That magical phrase which was intended to relieve the situation was "forgive and forget". The feeling that I had when I heard that was usually one resembling defeat. I knew at that point I had no choice but to give it up. As I got older I had more experience with betrayal. Sometimes it was malicious, and in other scenarios it was out of negligence. Regardless, after many times of using the philosophy of forgive and forget was not actually attainable. That's not to say that I did not feel that forgiveness was possible. My personal journey with finding and understanding forgiveness is what has made me curious as to how others feel about the idea of it. Psychology Today; Forgive and Forget.
I gathered a collection of people individually who have varying life experience and ages ranging from 15-52. I essentially had one goal. To find out what they deemed forgivable and the exceptions they have made as to what they feel is not. All of us have standards for ourselves, whether or not they be defined in ink. According to Piaget's stages of cognitive development, during the concrete operational stage, which occurs most commonly between the ages of 7-11, children learn the rules. They learn that there are consequences to their actions, and that punishment is bad and should be avoided. That includes not matching up to what the social norm is. In the case which I mentioned above, the norm which I was being challenged to meet as a child, was that I would forgive my playmates and carry on with my day without disruption from unruly emotions. I was forced to continue playing with them without any sort of contest. However, from ages 11 and up, according to Piaget's stages, is when we start to reason with the rules which have been defined for us. This gives us more freedom mentally to explore the feelings we have because the understanding of the world is that much broader. We have more of an ability to rationalize from case to case and decide what makes one happiest or reap the most reward.
I gathered a collection of people individually who have varying life experience and ages ranging from 15-52. I essentially had one goal. To find out what they deemed forgivable and the exceptions they have made as to what they feel is not. All of us have standards for ourselves, whether or not they be defined in ink. According to Piaget's stages of cognitive development, during the concrete operational stage, which occurs most commonly between the ages of 7-11, children learn the rules. They learn that there are consequences to their actions, and that punishment is bad and should be avoided. That includes not matching up to what the social norm is. In the case which I mentioned above, the norm which I was being challenged to meet as a child, was that I would forgive my playmates and carry on with my day without disruption from unruly emotions. I was forced to continue playing with them without any sort of contest. However, from ages 11 and up, according to Piaget's stages, is when we start to reason with the rules which have been defined for us. This gives us more freedom mentally to explore the feelings we have because the understanding of the world is that much broader. We have more of an ability to rationalize from case to case and decide what makes one happiest or reap the most reward.