Few years ago, I had a colleague in my office. He was older than me, he was also more experienced than me in different ways, in life as well as in career.
One day in our informal chat he told me, he hasn’t spoken to his dad for the last seven years.
I became so awkward and surprised to know how one can pass seven years without talking to his own dad who is living just 300 hundred miles away.
He continued, “Yes, I haven’t spoken with him since our family feud broke out.”
Without going into specific detail I asked him, “have you seen any family which is untouched by any kind of family feud?”
His reply was intended simply to ignore my question.
In reality, there is no family which is free from any kind of feud.
Feud can be major or minor but we all go through this in every family.
We all have problems, we all have things to resolve but it doesn’t mean we stop talking to each other especially to our dad and mom.
In the middle of our conversation he suddenly asked me another question, “What did you do last weekend?”
Instead of giving him the straight answer I asked him, “what did you do?”
He said, “I went to the botanical garden with my daughters.”
I further added, “Do you imagine the same situation as you have with your dad now between you and your daughters in the future?”
He unequivocally said, “no, it’s not possible, he continued that he is different than his dad, he was raised by his parents in a wrong way, and he is raising his daughters in different way than how he was raised by his parents”
He was blaming his dad in different ways but I didn’t comment at all. I just listened because I don’t know his dad. I simply listened that he was talking different parts about his dad to me.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t remain silent without asking, “who is more educated and resourceful now compared to your dad when you were growing up with him?”
He simply avoided my question and didn’t answer.
“Remember, this life is a gift our parents gave us. Period. Nobody can replace them in this generation.”
We all devote our time with our kids, we want to raise them in such a way they would become successful and independent when they grow up.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the 11th President of India and a renowned scientist always emphasized that as parents we don’t expect anything in return, this is how human generation transforms, progresses, and moves.
This is the beauty of generational transformation.
I asked him, “Does your daughter know you don’t speak to her grandpa?”
He said, “Yes, she knows it but she never brings that up in the family.”
Whatever happened to us in our family in the past, especially with our parents, whoever is involved in the fedu either dad or mom, whoever is faulty either dad or mom, we must forget it and forgive them, and move on.
Dad is dad. Mom is mom.
Remember, this life is a gift our parents gave us. Period.
Nobody can replace them in this generation.
We are here, we are alive, we became the luckiest product of the luckiest winning sperm and winning ovum.
This chance is rare.
We became the luckiest of all.
Think about this, the probability of us being born is at about one in 400 trillion.
One in 400 trillion.
Isn’t it luck?
If this isn’t luck then what is it, I don’t know.
“Once we forgive somebody, we feel amazing, we don’t know what that person feels but we feel free, we feel liberating.”
One thing, keep in mind, whatever our parents did in the past, they did according to their capacity, knowledge, and resources available at that time.
They might have made major or minor mistakes while raising us, whatever it was, just forget it and forgive them. Period.
They gave us this amazing life.
If you haven’t spoken to your dad for a long time, just pick up a phone and call, start the conversation.
If you haven’t visited them for a long time, give them a surprise visit.
Drink a beer with your dad if you can, if not drink tea with him in the nearest most beautiful and expensive restaurant.
Express the experience, tell your parents that you love them.
When they see you in front of them, they will forget the past feud, don’t bring that up.
Start the conversation fresh.
There are only three things we can enjoy in life: best conversation, best food, and best experience.
Always remember, we all die but our parents will die before us leaving all the family feud behind us.
We always see them growing older in front of us.
This is emotional but a fact.
Steve Harvey, host of Family Feud and author of ‘Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man‘ said “Our family feud is temporary and it is due to ego but if we don’t forgive our parents the regret will remain forever.”
That will remain as a scar in our heart.
Kobe Bryant, the late basketball legend, said, “Fear is temporary, regret is forever.” Regret is permanent, this regret will eat us from inside throughout our life.
Humility and forgiveness are human tools to uplift our life.
They serve the best for any kind of human endeavors.
If we fail to forgive the mistakes then there is no way we can grow as a free human being.
This also hampers our ability to improve our other cognitive skills to upgrade our own life.
We often mix ego with confidence but they are very different.
For some people it takes a few seconds to distinguish whether they are egotistical or confident but for some other people it might take a longer time to differentiate.
If we are able to separate ego from confidence from inside then only we can recognize our identity and capacity.
It’s alway better to be confident than to look confident, because both take the same kind of effort and time.
Social science research confirms that forgiveness is a multi-dimensional trait and takes into account self understanding and awareness, as well as openness.
Ryan Holiday, author of ‘Ego Is the Enemy” emphasizes that ego ruins us, confidence talks loud but humility and forgiveness whispers.
We need many more whispers for a free and happy life.
So, first and foremost, forgive your parents unconditionally.
Secondly, if you can, forgive your ex-spouse, ex-boss, and ex-friend unconditionally.
Once we forgive them, we feel amazing, we don’t know what they feel but we feel free, we feel we are liberating.
“Humility is to pause and think before making any judgement or reaction.”
Nelson Mandela, the greatest South African leader, often demonstrated that humility and forgiveness are inherent human characteristics which are different from other acquired human skills.
In many situations, people choose advisors or life coaches or mentors to acquire various skills.
But, most of the times, advisors don’t help to acquire inherent characteristics.
Their role is to find out how to accelerate our life goals, how to implement reasonable plans, and how to stick with the plan.
They don’t help to find out what our inherent personal characters are.
Nowadays, technology has become an integral part of our life to connect.
There is nothing we cannot find on the internet as information is flooded all over the place.
The Internet has become an extension of our human behavior.
The way we are living our lives these days is heavily influenced by technology and smartphones.
There are both pros and cons of it.
It has become a massive timesaver for us in many ways, it solves a lot of problems quicker, there is no doubt about it.
In the meantime, technology has also become a huge distraction for us if we don’t know how to react to our human emotions.
Similarly, technology is also making us more reactive than proactive, making us quick thinkers and quick decision makers.
It gives us promotions and advertisements twenty four hours.
The commercial motif of technology is to deviate us more and more with attention grabbing items, news, and notifications.
If we cannot hold information for a certain time to digest and analyze rationally and show our reactive attitude quickly on the internet, we damage our inherent character quickly.
We become too reactive to people whom we don’t associate, places where we’ve never visited, and situations which we have never experienced before.
When technology rules us in many ways, we must focus on where it doesn’t rule us.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and author of the influential book ‘Meditations‘ emphasizes that humility is to pause and think before making any judgement or reaction.
Forgiveness sits on the center of humility.
“Remember, life’s too short to spend time growing negative vibes and self-pity.“
Reactive mind invites more distraction and leads to a habit of multitasking which is bad for problem solvers and deep thinkers.
Keep in mind, there is a difference between problem focused mindset and solution focused mindset.
Multitasking might be good for mindless trivial things but harmful for a solution focused mindset.
Only we can multitask but our mind cannot multitask, that’s the reason we shouldn’t watch iPhone while crossing the street.
If our mind can multitask, a moving vehicle doesn’t hit us while watching the screen on the street.
I started this piece of content with the relationship between son and dad, but deviated a little bit to give a bigger picture of human mindset. Let me go a little deeper why we keep bitter feelings, acrimony, and ego inside us.
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate psychologist and author of ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow‘ talks about two types of thinking processes, fast thinking and slow thinking.
Fast process recognizes patterns automatically, quickly, and effortlessly and tells quickly what happens next and what to do next.
When the sky is predicted to fall and you cannot save it then the fast process says run, but for the same situation slow process says relax.
Slow process instructs us: reduce the fast intake of outside information, be calm, and don’t be reactive quickly.
Fast process only informs us “ what happens next? What to do next?” “Where to go?” but the slow process instructs us “how to handle next?”
But for a slow process to happen we have to wait, we have pause, which we don’t do most of the time.
Humility and forgiveness comes only in our life if we practice to adapt to the slow process.
In my experience, our relationship with our parents must be a slow process, we should not be quick to pick flowers because we might end up growing the weeds.
Remember, life’s too short to spend time growing negative vibes and self-pity.
Slow thinking process always focuses to beautiful flowers, but the fast thinking process might end up growing the weeds.
Slower the process, the higher the chance to make a rational decision.
In reality, our decisions often originate in a fast process which in most cases lead us to the wrong track.
I believe that’s what happened to my colleague and he is living carrying the acrimony over his dad.
“If our mind remains indecisive all the time, most of the time we pick the wrong one.”
Forgiveness is an essential human quality which can be improved everyday by practice.
Most often ego appears as confidence and corrodes us, that confidence which comes from ignorance rather than from knowledge which is very dangerous.
Fast thinking process also nurtures ignorance and ego.
Bertrand Russell, a Nobel Laureate philosopher and author of ‘The Conquest of Happiness‘ told that human have a natural tendency, our emotion is inversely related to our knowledge, the less we know the more excited we become, the less we know the more confident we sound.
This is the reason that religion, politics, and love act in the same way.
The real followers of these disciplines always remain steadfast regardless of any kind of situations, evidence or consequences.
They are called blind supporters, they only see one side of coins.
Political followers become like smokers, they become addicted to tobacco by the nicotine, but the real health risks come from inhaling toxic chemicals.
In a poor society where people are less educated, few political leaders supply the nicotine to the general public all the time so that they keep coming on for their motivated political agendas.
When a politician has a criminal record, or a history of cheating people or even just feels above the law, we as public must stop following them and think slowly.
If our mind remains indecisive all the time, most of the time we pick the wrong one.
Hannah Arendt, philosopher and author of ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism‘ said beautifully, “Most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
Crook politicians don’t suddenly sprout a sense of responsibility, that is possible only when the general public starts to think slowly and rationally based on social merits.
Conclusion
If we think slowly and act slowly, we always make fewer but better choices.
It helps us to separate diverse views, and let ideas fight to each other, but not the people.
When stronger gives order to the weaker, the weaker stops thinking and starts reacting because the authority or hierarchy shuts down our mind.
This is how our mind works in the beginning and we can not go deeper, this is natural but we can change it by our practice.
There is no guarantee that the order from the higher power is correct but our mind takes order in such a way that there is no alternative of higher power.
But if we pause and think slowly, one single word or one single sentence or one single idea could change our existing mindset and we become better decision makers.
While testing the general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein said, “ if a single one of the conclusions from it proves wrong, it must be given up.”
Just one counterfact is enough to show that the scientific theory is wrong.
If you can not forgive your dad unconditionally, then your theory of life is wrong and you will remain wrong forever, you will never be happy, healthy, and wealthy again.
Therefore, always and always forgive your dad unconditionally.
Finally, the TedTalk ‘How forgiving my father liberated me‘ by Agon Hare, a singer, video creator, and world-traveler from Poland is worth watching.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
