Forgiving Myself

The Jewish High Holidays are all about forgiveness.  As a Jew, I’m supposed to have conversations with everyone who I might have offended over the year and ask their forgiveness.  And, they are supposed to forgive…

But… the toughest conversation I’ll have this year is with myself.  In many ways, I am my own worst enemy and harshest crtiic.  If you asked, I could come up with at least 100 things from trivial (I should keep a cleaner house) to life altering (I should take better care of myself or I should be nicer to my Mom) to forgive.  In many ways, forgiveness is getting past the “you should have’s” to something slightly more constructive.

Since forgiveness also means making things right - it is easy to be lazy and just let things simmer internally rather than take the action to get rid of the should haves.  So, here we go, at this moment, I forgive myself all the should haves and I will do better next year…