Have we forgotten how to forgive?

Everybody talks about accountability. Almost nobody talks about forgiveness. That should worry us.

There was a time when people could make a mistake and survive it. Not physically, but socially.

You said something stupid. You lost your temper. You made a poor decision. Perhaps you drank too much at the office Christmas party and danced on a table while for some reason trying to explain macroeconomics to the CFO of all people. People shook their heads, called you an idiot, laughed about it for a while, and then eventually moved on.

Life continued.

Today, things feel different. One unfortunate comment. One bad day. One badly worded post. One photograph from 2014. One joke that didn’t really land. And suddenly you’re standing trial in the Court of Public Opinion.

Population: everybody.

Appeals process: unavailable.

Now, before somebody misunderstands me completely, let me be clear: some behaviour deserves consequences. Obviously. If you rob a bank, set fire to your neighbour’s garage, or attempt to sell fake dinosaur eggs on the internet, then yes, society should probably have a word with you.

But that’s not really what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about ordinary human mistakes. The kind we all make. The kind you’ve made. The kind I’ve made. The kind we’re probably going to make again before the end of this week.

Because that is the thing about being human.

It’s messy. It has always been messy.

And yet we seem increasingly surprised every time somebody behaves like a human being.

The strange thing is that most of us are remarkably good at forgiving ourselves. We explain our own behaviour with extraordinary generosity.

If I lose my temper, it’s because I’ve had a stressful week.

If I forget something important, it’s because I’ve got a lot on my mind.

If I say something clumsy, it’s because I didn’t express myself properly.

But if you do exactly the same thing? Well. That’s obviously because you’re careless, insensitive, arrogant, incompetent, or possibly evil.

Interesting how quickly the standards change.

Have we forgotten how to forgive?

I think perhaps we have.

Not because we’re bad people. Not because we’re cruel. But because modern life encourages us to judge snapshots instead of stories.

We see one moment and assume we know the whole person. One sentence and we think we understand their character. One mistake and we decide who they are.

The problem is that none of us would want to be judged that way ourselves. Imagine if every foolish thing you’ve ever said was displayed on a giant screen above your house.

Every awkward comment.

Every bad decision.

Every opinion you later changed your mind about.

Every text message sent at exactly the wrong moment.

Most of us would spend the rest of our lives hiding indoors. The internet has become remarkably good at remembering. Unfortunately, human beings seem to be learning from the internet.

Maybe we should do the opposite.

Because forgiveness is not about pretending bad behaviour didn’t happen. It’s about recognising that people are usually bigger than their worst moment. It’s about understanding that growth requires room for mistakes. It’s about accepting that if nobody is allowed to be imperfect, eventually nobody will dare to be honest.

And that is a much bigger problem than the mistake itself.