Have you had such a bad experience with something, that you just never wanted to return? Then you go on social media, and there are people who are going through similar, but not quite the same, problem. So they post these meme’s, they say things like something along the lines of “the strong forget, but the strongest forgive” or some bullshit like that?

(I just found out that you can underline in WP, and I feel very accomplished.)

My favourite is the one that says “Forgive To Forget” I’ll post it at the end, and then you’ll see why. You’re going to make mistakes, that is a given. From the moment you are born, we’re already messing up. Can you imagine if we didn’t have our parents, how long would it take to find out that you not supposed to shit yourself? We all make mistakes, you had to learn to walk didn’t you; had to figure out how you’re going to move with your big dumb head; maybe that was only me.

Sir Frances Bacon said it best, “To Err is Human”. I don’t even know if he said that, it sounds right though. I’m not teaching a class, you have access to Google; fucking use it. Basically, this is how I understand human existence, to be about not messing up as much as possible. That’s basically how you separate someone who is good, as opposed to someone who is great. How much pressure do you think being a surgeon is, you’re basically one shiver away during surgery from the possibility of having your entire career wiped.

I had this professor, Iris Au, for international economics; the course itself was pretty interesting. She told us that one of the classmates from her grad school program now makes something around $600 thousand a year trading international funds, he borrows from funds from one country, and purchases some financial instrument in another country, anticipating that the exchange rates in all three countries will work out in his firms’ favour. She warned, however, one major mistake and he was out the door; you can imagine the pool of hungry Grad students just waiting for an opportunity like that.

Like the hungry cat, just waiting for its owner to die; so it can eat dinner at the table.

Can you imagine if everyone thought of life as that, though? We wouldn’t have many friends, our parents would hate us, we’d have no job because no one wants to hire us. It would be a disaster, everyone would be so stressed out, for the only reason being that no one forgave. Thankfully, the world isn’t like that. For a lot of people, their parents just give and give, and they keep on taking more, and more. With little to no appreciation or gratitude. Parents are like this, a lot of parents are like this. Some of your friends are like this, at least the people who pose to be your friends are like this. Your boss is probably like this, if you’re the boss I bet some of your employees are like this. When do you say enough is enough?

You can do it right now, for me personally. I’ve given, and I keep giving, and still, I sit here and I’ve never got my share back in return. I know what you’re going to say, “when you give someone something you shouldn’t expect anything in return”. Not everyone is like Elizabeth Gilbert, who at the end of her divorce in Eat, Pray, Love. just gave her ex-husband everything. Professor Au also stressed that there is no such thing as a free lunch (metaphorically, of course, I could go to a friends house, and his mum would feed me).

What I’m trying to get at is say that you have been wronged, and these people haven’t made an effort to actually reconcile any of the wrongdoing. Sure, they may be sorry, but you don’t fucking know. How egotistical do they have to be to want someone to come to see them, remember they’ve wronged you, so that they can fix or apologize for what has happened. I mean that alone, is pretty ballsy; they could sit there and say they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing, but you know they knew. If they didn’t know, they wouldn’t be trying to pull you back. Either way, you have to stop giving. Maybe, by writing this post I am giving them hope, that I still care, that they still bug me.

It did matter once, a long time ago. I am writing this to others, so others don’t get taking advantage of either. We all love others too much, give ourselves away too much, let our loved ones take too much for virtually nothing. There are two types of people in this world, the Steve Jobs, and the nerd who engineered the iPhone (I’m stealing this idea from a Bill Burr joke). You can be the Steve Jobs, people craze for and idolize him, he attends conventions and speaks in front of thousands; everyone knows who Steve Jobs is. Or you can be one of the engineers of the iPhone, helps build a product that will enrich the lives of thousands, but he doesn’t speak in front of thousands, a fraction of the people know his name, he just makes a nice sum of money and goes back to his family. Doesn’t have to be in the spotlight, doesn’t care what everyone else thinks, just knows what matters.

Which person are you?