Session 34.5. On Forgiveness

For years I used to believe that this sentence justified forgiveness without contrition. These are things I have thought on for a LONG time. I remember asking questions on this area before I even got to the Law of One:

Questioner: If an entity develops what is called a karma in an incarnation, is there then programming that sometimes occurs so that he will experience catalyst that will enable him to get to a point of forgiveness thereby alleviating the karma?

Ra: I am Ra. This is, in general, correct. However, both self and any involved other-self may, at any time through the process of understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness, ameliorate these patterns. This is true at any point in an incarnative pattern. Thus one who has set in motion an action may forgive itself and never again make that error. This also brakes or stops what you call karma.

Now though, I am looking at this in a different way. Firstly, the answer states that understanding and acceptance is necessary. Understanding and acceptance in my understanding often go to very deep roots If we are to understand something it might go right down to patterns started in childhood.

So with an example lets say that a couple had a nasty break up and one or the other is wondering whether to forgive the other. Let’s say that a man and a woman got married but the marriage fell apart due to lack of appreciation of each other and a slow descent into, cheating, passive aggression and arguing.

We could say these people need to “forgive” each other then assumedly, the karma would be gotten rid of and they would not have any remaining problems with each other? This, without the understanding and acceptance would state that they would be compelled to “love” each other then, because that was the baseline before the forgiveness.

But that’s not what the line says, the line says understanding and acceptance first, which I think is meant to potentially take years or longer.

Now understanding and acceptance it seems to me, might be that say, rather than wanting the woman for her soul the man wanted her body, and rather than wanting the man for his soul she wanted his resources.

So the line would make more sense to me that say, the guy wanted a young attractive girl and was kind of ‘hormoned’ into believing a woman he discovers he did not love. Then obviously, since she does not particularly like him either and starts nagging (because appreciating him would lose her control) so when she gets older and he meets another young attractive and willing partner he goes with her as well then cheats.

So the understanding, would be that he did not love his original wife - and this understanding might have gone down to deep childhood things. This understanding then removes the issue, the ‘karma’ per sey, of him getting in relationships with people that he doesn’t really love and that don’t really love him. It might also, allow him to ask more questions of his partner and determine if the two are truly in love with each other.

We are unclear exactly what the Law of One contact meant by the term ‘karma’. Karma is that that which is done keeps on being done? So childhood patterns become repetitive if not reflected on and cause bad situatiosn? Not that all outer situations are suddenly sorted out with the alleviation of karma?

Then, for him, forgiveness is implicit after that understanding. It is an end point after a process. It seems to me though that in relation to ‘karma’ they still might have an aggressive divorce and alimony or whatever, so it is unlikely if we were to consider that manifestation of hostility physical karma, that the ex wifes understanding can be forced to stop hostilities. Due to free will?

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I believe this is the difference in between saying to someone that they are forgiven and actually forgiving them at the level where karma is alleviated. Same thing with forgiving the self.

This cannot really be accomplished using words or actions. It is a dynamic understanding where acceptance is alive.

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OK, I don’t know what a dynamic understanding where acceptance is alive is. But I just had a thought… Is forgiveness even outrightly stated here?

‘Through the process of understanding, acceptance and forgiveness.’ So, that is an ongoing process. But it leaves room for forgiveness to be OPTIONAL rather than required for the alleviation of karma?

I don’t like using hypotheticals because there is always the risk of creating a hypothetical that is not realistic just to prove oneself right. But I don’t see another way of explaining my thoughts here.

For instance, let’s say the ex husband in this situation had a bad relationship. Then broke up with the wife and does reflection on himself. Realises that due to his family upbringing he didn’t have enough male role models and community support to stop his sex drive getting the better of him. Realises he doesn’t love the wife and she doesn’t really love him.

At this point, we do not know what the wife is thinking. Let’s say this was a religious marriage and there was community pressure on the wife not to get a divorce, so in order to justify it she claims, and convinces herself, that he was super abusive but in reality it was just a run of the mill dysfunctional marriage.

Now she is incentivised through the power of the state to maintain that illusion and keep the alimony. So has made a deal with the devil in a sense and her soul cannot be saved. At this point, from the ex husbands side, he would not be true to himself to forgive her for this. Because she is initiating force against him through the power of the state. This would cause ongoing negative emotion within him. She also is not doing well against her stated ethics in relation to ‘thou shalt not steal’.

She also has not requested the forgiveness since she can’t admit wrongdoing.

THEREFORE, might it be that the exact wording that this is a process is important. The process he engaged in: understanding, acceptance and forgiveness alleviates the karma BUT, where forgiveness is impossible that stops at acceptance.

Say the guy also has a brother that he had a bad time with who didn’t like his wife, and he understands, accepts and forgives the difficulties there (like, he says he should have listened etc.) because they are both open to that. But the ex wife is not forgiven because her co operation would be required so he only goes to acceptance with her.

He has still alleviated karma but not forgiven because the entire thing is a process!

My meaning is that it cannot be reasoned out. It is living in the sense that we cannot simply think about it, we can live through the experience and understanding comes and is dynamic because it changes with each circumstances.

It begins with blind faith where you just trust that it does not matter what you did or what another did. All is acceptable and you trust this so deeply that understanding takes life within you. You then are able to truly let go (of the karma). All of our karma is clung to by ourselves as a tool to help our own evolution. It is not a punition that is put unto us by the Universe or another entity. We do this to ourselves to create momentum for our own good.

We can only practice this in our everyday lives. For example, when we begin to have some success, we stop caring about punishments or finding who to blame. We just roll with the circumstance and let go of the desire to blame or keep a grudge.

This process starts with yourself, then you can apply it with other selves and then with society, politics, elitism, conspirations, etc…

It is your point of view that changes and makes it so that you can eventually see through your upbringing or any other societal pressure/mindset and just be at peace with what is.

All that being said, the fact that it is a dynamic process also means that (caring about yourself as much as about other selves) you make choices that protects you and others from further harms related to any ongoing circumstances.

Moreover, this living and dynamic acceptance is not congruent with one keeping still in the storm and letting itself be beaten up, instead one dances with the Universe and then the storm no longer appears as a storm but is seen to be the ballroom dance floor that it is.

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That is semantics though. There is no third party that decides what is “evolutionary” in your terms, and what is punishment. I had a suicide attempt and then a few years later met a friend I was close to that killed herself. Whether that is “evolutionary” or “punishment” is for me to define - and largely, the language there does not explain a great deal anyway. Is there no room for punishment in the higher positive forces theories? If someone “punishes” someone else unjustly, are they not to be punished? What is the world without punishment where we don’t receive pushback from unethical behaviours.

We can only practice this in our everyday lives. For example, when we begin to have some success, we stop caring about punishments or finding who to blame. We just roll with the circumstance and let go of the desire to blame or keep a grudge.

To an extent this has been true for me. My half sister is so damn flakey. Trying to communicate is like nailing jelly to a wall and this wound me up a lot when I was in a bad place. But I don’t focus on it now. I literally don’t have the spare energy to think of it.

BUT, I don’t quite know how this impacts things such as forgiveness and whatnot? When people get successful don’t they meet other people that match their increased power? Isn’t there more opportunity to take advantage of such a person? If they have conflicts with these people then the power does not effect the forgiveness in that situation no?

Also, I think it brings in another interesting question. Can we forgive from a powerless position? Session 17.17 revealed that part of the reason for the crucifixion was only relevant because Jesus had the metaphysical power to turn the scene into something out of a hellraiser film. If someone wrongs us can we regard them positively if we don’t have the power under free will to harm them if we so chose?

It is only ourselves that define what we wish to evolve toward. The original desire of the part of us that experiences itself as the One is that we seek to become unity once more. But that desire will never be enforced, because it is also desired that we choose this freely.

It’s a matter of choosing a point of view where nothing really changes in our circumstances yet we become happier. In my experience, that cannot be satisfactorily explained to another. But it shows in ways such as forgiving the self, others, the Elites, the systems and whatnot. It no longer bothers you. You become fine with it all.

I do not know why we wish to evolve either. I have no idea what the point of it all is. But I trust there is a good reason. I believe reaching such a trust/faith is perhaps the best we can hope to achieve while incarnated in this veiled state.

I think the best way to heal this world is for more people to practice this. The rest will then come naturally.

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Perhaps some quotes could shed more light.

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I wonder if one way to attain deep forgiveness of another self, is not made easier by trying through imagination to completely pout oneself into the other self shoes.

This, as if y ou erase temporarily the judgment you have on that other self, judgment or instinctive emotional repulse, or heavy. memories of hurt, whatever,. Then once you have temporarily erased those , coming to a sort of neutral state, through imagination, trying to find all the angles from where this other self is acting, truly putting oneself in her/his shoes.

It think it is possible then to find access to deep forgiveness.

And then suddenly the judgment issue, or the repulsive feeling may well evaporate. The most wonderful consequence is that you liberate your own self of the weight of judgment, frustration, respulsion, and so on,

I saw an interesting French video this morning.

It was a young woman in her thirties and her dad had remarried and his second mariage had ended badly with him being killed by his second wife, who subsequently was judged and sent to prison.

The judicial system in france provides the possibility for such a young woman to go through a series of therapy sessions to get her ready to meet the woman who murdered her father and offer her in words forgivveness.

So this young woman had accepted to do this video and explained that by offering her forgiveness vocally to the second wife of her dad, she had in some way given her back the respect and mental freedom to deal with it. and at the same time found herself free of the heavy burden of mixed emotions due to the death of her dad.

The video was very low key, told very simply, yet very moving, as she was taking you through the steps she took, and how they both wanted to meet, and then never met again.

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Hello Flofrog.

OK, so this is opening up the conversation to forgiveness in general and less so on that quote?

I believe, strongly. That it is a violation of boundaries to tell people to forgive when they have been through something nasty and it is a subtle violation of boundaries to hold to a theological view that forgiveness is super necessary for ‘spiritual evolution’ and that, following on from that, that people that do not forgive are somehow ‘less than’, or unevolved. Which is unavoidable when holding that viewpoint.

It leads to guilt tripping abuse victims and the destructive/ evil gaslighting, that supports the lie that people will reach some sort of nirvana of peace if they forgive the abuser without contrition or any behaviour on the part of the abuser.

That is projection because it is the abuser that is consumed by the flames of their own conscience. The moral accountability is not on the part of the victim.

There is a lot of discussion of this in the abuse communities and such. A philosopher I follow talks about it a fair bit and he had a mother that smashed his head against a radiator when he was five years old.

If you think about it. God does not forgive without contrition. You have to accept Jesus in your heart, go to confession, and be a good person. To say you can forgive an abuser without contrition is to say you are smarter than god, who does not do that, and more powerful than the devil (that owns the soul). It is disrespecting free will. Since the abuser did not request it.

I heard another story. I have heard many stories in fact since the algorithm matches me with hard right people the second I enter social media. Many stories of “forgiving liberals” being cut up like a turkey. One story I remember was a woman whose mother was killed by a guy and she “forgave” the killer and offered for him to live with her… Then he killed her.

I do not believe anyone is being asked to forgive. Yet we can share what effects forgiveness had in our own experiences. This is done only with the hope that it can inspire others.

After all, not forgiving ends up hurting the self much more than hurting the one not being forgiven. It’s like keeping a tight hold of a burning rod in your hands while thinking this will hurt the other person.

After all, not forgiving ends up hurting the self much more than hurting the one not being forgiven. It’s like keeping a tight hold of a burning rod in your hands while thinking this will hurt the other person.

Oh really? So what you are saying is that if you do not forgive you will be consumed by the fires of hell?

I don’t believe this and like I have already stated, it is projection. The evildoer is the one that is being consumed by the fires of hell. Many people don’t forgive abusers and are fine and are … safer.

Also, when making that post and that point you ignored my entire previous post on the subject and simply stated your viewpoint.

It is a pattern in our communication. You make a point, I respond to that point and you respond ignoring my point and with a lot of vagueness. I suspect it is because you do not want to back down from your point but can’t justify it… Here is an example:

This is what you said:

We can only practice this in our everyday lives. For example, when we begin to have some success, we stop caring about punishments or finding who to blame. We just roll with the circumstance and let go of the desire to blame or keep a grudge.

This is what I said:

BUT, I don’t quite know how this impacts things such as forgiveness and whatnot? When people get successful don’t they meet other people that match their increased power? Isn’t there more opportunity to take advantage of such a person? If they have conflicts with these people then the power does not effect the forgiveness in that situation no?

Also, I think it brings in another interesting question. Can we forgive from a powerless position? Session 17.17 revealed that part of the reason for the crucifixion was only relevant because Jesus had the metaphysical power to turn the scene into something out of a hellraiser film. If someone wrongs us can we regard them positively if we don’t have the power under free will to harm them if we so chose?

Then you made another post that I have quoted only a little of here, and additional one including a quo quote. Which basically amounts to, from my understanding “I will not answer your point I will just endlessly state everything is a mystery so I don’t have to back down”. (Word salad). You could easily respond with ‘Oh yeah, I suppose you are right’. Or even something about the philosophy about forgiving from a powerless position. Or something else that directly answers the response to your original statement.

It’s a matter of choosing a point of view where nothing really changes in our circumstances yet we become happier. In my experience, that cannot be satisfactorily explained to another.

This is not an attack, I don’t feel any anger as I write this, I’m just writing it from my perspective. You are definitely responding to my comments while having ignored something that is relevant in the previous post.

The question I have for you is why do you have the same viewpoint that abusers have? Abusers love forgiveness without contrition don’t they? They love it. You’d think if forgiveness was so important they would offer contrition. How does it benefit you to hold this viewpoint?

Oh not at all no. I am just speaking of how it feels to hold onto a grudge. It’s heavy and might be fueled by white hot anger. Keeping a hold of this anger hurts the self exponentially more than the other-self. That’s all I am saying. There are no notion of judgment in any of it. :slight_smile:

Please, write to me in private if you wish to discuss such matters as this. As per our guidelines, public threads are meant to discuss ideas and arguments and not each others. Thank you for your understanding.

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Oh not at all no. I am just speaking of how it feels to hold onto a grudge. It’s heavy and might be fueled by white hot anger. Keeping a hold of this anger hurts the self exponentially more than the other-self. That’s all I am saying. There are no notion of judgment in any of it.

Let’s go back to the original quote:

After all, not forgiving ends up hurting the self much more than hurting the one not being forgiven. It’s like keeping a tight hold of a burning rod in your hands while thinking this will hurt the other person.

So you are stating this is a fact? If it is a fact it means that someone who does not forgive is choosing to hold onto the anger when it is self destructive. That is a judgement. You cannot have it both ways. Either this statement is correct which implies that people not abiding by it are doing something wrong. Or there is no judgement, which means it can’t be correct. Because if people that aren’t following it aren’t doing something wrong, then the initial statement can’t be true.

It’s the equivalent of me seeing “If you are white you are superior”, and then a black friend of mine gets upset and me saying “No, that does not mean black people aren’t just as competent as whites”. The statement doesn’t make sense. It either exists or it doesn’t. It’s not Schroedingers Buddhist quote. It isn’t both true and not true at the same time.

I think the only thing we can do is share with others how things are for ourselves. So I am only sharing what it feels like to me to hold a grudge or hold onto white hot anger.

This is certainly how I have experienced it yes. But it does not mean that one is aware of this when making the choice.

I will take this opportunity to mention that I do not personally believe in objectivity. I believe absolutely everything is subjective, even mathematics. So from that point of view, I hope you will understand that I find it difficult to follow your reasoning.

What I have been sharing is my personal understanding at this very moment in time. It is how things are for me and I share only with the hope it will be useful for others as well. There is no intention on my part of stating facts or making judgments of any kinds. On the contrary, I would hope that anything said that does not resonate is quickly discarded as not being useful for the reader at this time.

OK, firstly, I am enjoying this conversation. I have some weird quirk where I don’t seem to register conflict massively easily. So even though me continuing to push on these points is a debate and is not high in agreeableness. Don’t take it as an attack. I also passionately believe in defending against the boundary violation of the tract of forgiveness without contrition. There are other conversations on this forum I have let go because they are not so important. Such as the delineation of densities. I did not bring in more information when that was pushed against. But forgiveness is an important subject.

Objectivism and Subjectivism is an interesting conversation. While I have paid attention to philosophers that are strongly into objectivism. For me I have a few reasons, a few things in life that seem to demonstrate the relevance of subjectivism.

Having said that, language is objective; and we do meet in the objective world. For instance, if you are stating that ‘anger is like holding a hot coal’ etc. That is a value proposition. So you are stating this is true and it’s opposite. which would be “holding anger is productive activity to defend against being perceived as weak” as an example. Is not true. If one statement is true then it’s opposite is also not true.

Do you have an experience where you personally have let go of anger and forgiven without contrition and this has been positive for you? Would you summarise that? It seems to me what you are trying to say is that for you personally letting go of anger and forgiving is positive but that was not what was said.

My perspective on this is that I would not say anything close to that because of the reasons that I have summarised. If forgiveness without contrition is positive, then that should also be true of the people in the abuse communities who do not believe that. Like, I would have to hold the position that the guy whose mother smashed his head against the radiator at five years old should forgive his mother to ‘let go of the anger’, and that seems sick to me.

In my personal life my emotions are very hard to get a grip on. This is partly a symptom of schizophrenia, which was pushed by the physical medical condition. People with schizoid, which is schizophrenias least intense manifestation, struggle to access emotions a lot and I have the theory that without the stabilising effect of emotions, that’s where other sensations are able to take precedence. Like, emotions drown out the crazy in people without schizoid traits.

But, I have been bullied and made music about said bullies, nasty songs, I enjoyed writing and that I don’t see any possibility or benefit to forgiving said bullies. But I also can’t focus on the emotion I have for others. I.e. what is called in therapy lingo ‘object relations’.

I can certainly share that around 2010 I decided to let go of my anger against what could be called “The Elites controlling this world”. That got the ball rolling. After a while I realized I had forgiven them. But this happened only after I found the Law of One and realized that there was no “them”. It was always ever just me doing this to myself. Forgiveness then became nearly automatic for me.

This had a profoundly positive effect on my life. It was like dropping a very heavy weight I had been carrying around with me without my notice. I found that carrying this around served no purpose other than me making myself more miserable.

We could explore what is hopped to be accomplished by not forgiving?

Would that be done to punish the mother for example? If so, it will not have that effect in my experience. The other-self is not very much affected by whether or not we forgive. It mostly has an effect on ourselves.

This can be observed by forgiving someone without telling them. We feel better and lighter and not much changes for the other-self. If one decides not to forgive, and does not tell the other-self of that decision, then again the other-self is not much affected, but it certainly has an effect on ourselves since we remain burdened.

On the other hand, if those choices are communicated to the other-self, then they will partake a little bit in the effects. They’ll feel a little lighter if forgiven and a little heavier if not.

In order for them to get the full positive effect, they would have to also forgive themselves. The Confederation is even telling us that we can get the full positive effect by truly forgiving ourselves even if we are not forgiven by others.

So, in my opinion, that makes forgiveness a very personal affair indeed.

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Ah, well firstly, I got a huge positive benefit by just not going on conspiracy.

But that seems a bit sick to me. Even though we don’t know what these people have been doing if our sketchy reports are correct and they have been mutilating children and such, it would seem to me to be wholly amoral to forgive such a person. Since it is rewarding this behaviour.

Also, there is no understanding or acceptance there, because we don’t even know what happens or the names in most cases of the people that did these things.

The definition of forgiveness is to cease to hold resentment. So you don’t have resentment towards child abusers? Damn, that is cold.

This can be observed by forgiving someone without telling them. We feel better and lighter and not much changes for the other-self. If one decides not to forgive, and does not tell the other-self of that decision, then again the other-self is not much affected, but it certainly has an effect on ourselves since we remain burdened.

This doesn’t seem to be legitimate to me. If we don’t tell people we have forgiven them then what is the evidence we have done so? Isn’t the behaviour of avoiding them the response to their action, and their action has changed behaviour, therefore, their action has lead to the result of them being in a not forgiven state?

Also, we are accountable to no one. So if we start hating the person again. If we haven’t told anyone then who’s gonna know?

@Phoenix In my opinion, you are mixing up a lot of concepts.

Before birth, we all, so to speak, choose a certain life scenario. For example, you can be born into a family of a mother who has problems with aggression. Сhildhood thinking patterns, or rather I would say childhood traumas, are the result of how your parents treated you, but no matter how it sounds, before you were born you chose exactly this scenario, so that you would get such a mother, so that you would go through this pain. Why were you born into a family with a mother who has problems with aggression? Maybe looking at her and feeling everything that’s happening, you’ll come to some conclusions? Maybe you will notice that your mother also had many problems, and in fact she always wanted support, but life forced her to take a defensive stance and not show her tears to anyone? You see, each situation needs to be discussed individually. It is impossible to describe every life event in a couple of lines. In short, having been born and having faced certain problems, you enter this game where you are tested. How will you act in this or that situation? Will you come to the understanding that Love is salvation? That we are all one? Or will you play cards against God, trying to outplay him, to outwit him?

Will someone punish you for playing against God? Will someone punish you for choosing to experience certain things in life? The answer to these questions is “no”. What is karma anyway? Do you really think there is some universal entity that will interfere with your life? You are very much mistaken. Karma in everyday life is the most real patterns of thinking. They can be specially instilled, that is, chosen as a condition of the game, before your birth. For example, you get into a family with an aggressive mother, from whom you receive many, many patterns of behavior (and the receipt of these patterns was planned in advance before your birth). But these thinking patterns can also be acquired by you in later life when you interact with others. Have you ever wondered what karma is for? Think about it, if you systematically seek out mean, arrogant women to talk to because they remind you of your mother from childhood, that is, the first important person in your life, and you do not change your perception of reality, then you will come across such people. Karma is literally there to show you that you are thinking too damn narrowly, too unfreely. The point of karma is to point out your unfreedom. As soon as you come to understanding, as soon as you understand why everything is like this, you have the freedom to choose. Before that, you didn’t have such freedom, because you didn’t have understanding. Therefore, the point of karma is to give understanding/freedom.

But most of the bad things that happen in life are mostly the result of your choices, your thinking patterns, your lack of understanding of how things should be done correctly. And there is no influence of your higher self, etc. But only your free will. And you thought that it was some kind of universal karma that spoils everything, but in fact, the reason for everything is your systematic ill will towards others, arrogance in communication, rudeness, unwillingness to read books, learn new things/professions, unwillingness to take care of your body’s health, even a banal unwillingness to stop swearing rude words. Everything is really not that complicated.

But you are stating each of these things as objective truths and every single thing you have listed there is not an objective truth.

Even if some part of it is true there is no way to know if it is all true, and which part is true, and which parts of it we cannot understand because time/ space is too weird of a place to describe.

Based on this tract of yours are you willing to tell someone that was raped as a child that they should forgive their abuser without contrition?

Everything is really not that complicated.

And this is condescending. I think life is indeed very complicated.

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Everything we write here on this forum, whether it concerns specific topics or very complex and abstract ones, is all subjective. That is the essence of the forum, to exchange opinions, giving hope and support.

Yes, I agree. And as far as I know, the same tendency of “wandering in the dark” continues in various journeys after this life. So save those thoughts that you like, that are applicable and useful in life. And leave the rest behind. Why all this abstruse talk about incomprehensible things, when you can speak more simply and to the point?

In life, there can be all sorts of hard lessons. Someone can lose their beloved sister, for example. And someone, like in your example. Usually such hard life lessons, which in general did not depend on you, they are created before incarnation. Most likely, it was necessary to experience these feelings, this pain. For what? You will most likely understand this after death. I did not quite understand your question, but it seems to me that you asked how it is possible to forgive someone who does not repent of his crime, that is, does not feel guilty or that he did something wrong. But should you forgive him? Do you sincerely want this? I also question many things that are written in the law of one, transmitted by Ra, or the confederation. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that you need to forgive. You need to understand for yourself what exactly such forgiveness will help you with. If you think that revenge or hatred, disgust, is the best answer from you, then please just do that. It will be sincere from you.

No, I didn’t mean to offend you. This is your personal perception of my words. I meant that you choose to perceive life this way. You could perceive it differently. When was the last time you thought about something beautiful that you have that others don’t have?