Having a good memory has come in handy a lot for me. This has been true across several domains of my life, e.g., with music, in relationships, for learning, I'm grateful for this particular trait.
Here's the rub. Sometimes, I can be a little thin skinned. So when someone says something that hurts my feelings, which is not that hard to do, I tend to remember it for a long time. A friend of mine used to refer to this propensity as being part of my "Irish discourse". But because I'm the 7th generation on my Father's side - the Irish part of my heritage - to be born in the U.S., I'm not inclined to accept ethnic explanations. To me it just seems like I remember too much. Which two traits of yours when combined add up to an unpleasant cocktail like these two of mine do? What are your strategies for working around your cocktail? What suggestions do you have for me?Forgive & forget? I've gotten a bit better at the forgive part of that equation as I've gotten older. The forget part? Got myself a little conundrum there, don't I?
I never connected my tendency to be "sensitive" (my term for thin skinned) with my memory which is pretty good. Our brains have a negativity bias which also factors into this. Forgive and forget really doesn't cut it. My way of dealing with this is to allow time to mellow me out and to realize that I am hurting myself. So I am working on practicing self-love.
ReplyDeleteInes; Thanks for the comment and for sharing your strategy.
DeleteHey Pat. Hmmm .. I have been told that I can, at times, display emotions and reactions that could be attributed to my, fairly diverse, heritage. Of course I don't see it. Or maybe I don't 'always' see it would be a better way to say it. As for forgiving and forgetting --- well, not good at that at all. Maybe forgetting since I do tend to be a little forgetful at times and things that are not important to me are usually the first to go. As for forgiving ... Can I say it depends on what happened? Of course, at the same time, I would hope that I would be, or have been, forgiven for my youthful indescretions.
ReplyDeleteBe well,
Bob
Bob; Thanks for the comment. Given my wayward adolescence and young adult years, asking others to forgive OR forget my youthful indiscretions would be a fool's errand. Anyway, my focus in this post was aimed at my own conundrum with "forgiving and forgetting."
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