Member-only story
How To Avoid The Worst Punishment: Forgiveness
I know I can’t deal with injustice. The unjust know they have a weapon far more powerful than punishment.
There is something worse than being unfairly punished: being unfairly forgiven.
Looking back, I can say that, for most of my life, I have been lucky enough to avoid punishment. Moreover, the very few times I’ve been punished, the punishment has been fair, the reasons clear and understandable.
Who hasn’t been punished unjustly at least once in their lives, though?
It might have been at home, at school, at work, or it might have been serious enough to involve The Law, in any of its geographical or temporal iterations.
Unfairness stirs something inside of me that I don’t like to see stirred. Ever since I was a child, unfairness has been something I cannot deal with while keeping a cool head. Unfairness causes my insides to simmer, and I’ve hardly ever managed to prevent them from erupting once the process has been triggered.
An animal being tortured, a kid being bullied, a friend being taken advantage of… most of my earliest memories — memories from such an early time that we can barely recall anything from — involve injustice in one way or another, because it was…