Gate on to infuriation is like grasping a humid pitch with the intent of throwing it at someone other - you are the one who gets burned. "
attributed to Buddha
Want a template for resiliency and forgiveness? Or perhaps you could use a shot of inspiration. If so, I impetus you to peruse the book " Unbroken " by Laura Hillenbrand whose previous book was " Seabiscuit. "
" Unbroken " tells the story of Louis Zamperini who, in the 1930s, was a path star in high school in Torrance, California because husky for in college at the University of Southern California. Some cognition he would be the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. Zamperini ran the 5, 000 meters ( a little over three miles ) in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
In 1942, Zamperini volunteered for the Army Air Force. He was a bombadier and survived a horrific air battle over the Japanese held island of Nauru.
Several weeks later, he and an 11 - member crew crashed in the Pacific while searching for the crew of a downed flight. Three men survived the crash.
The men floated on a raft in the Pacific for 47 days. They subsisted on scarce rainwater, the occasional bird that landed on their raft and the livers from two sharks that they killed using only a pliers ( take that " Jaws " ).
One of the men, Francis McNamara, died after 37 days. Louis and the other survivor, Russell Phillips who had been the pilot on the doomed flight, floated 2, 000 miles to the Japanese controlled Marshall Islands where they were captured and imprisoned.
Survival at sea is only the first part of this harrowing story. For the next two years, Louis and the other prisoners of war were beaten, tortured and starved. Because no one had heard from him in all this time, Louis was declared dead by the war department.
His ordeal as a prisoner of war ended when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrendered.
Louis returned home, married and had two children. But his rage at his Japanese captors and, especially, a camp commander named Watanabe, produced horrific nightmares and alcoholism.
At the urging of his wife, Louis attended a revival meeting in Los Angeles led by the young Billy Graham. Remembering a pledge he had made while on the raft at sea to give his life to God if he survived, Louis literally ended his drinking that night and dedicated his life to helping others. His nightmares and his rage never returned.
Perhaps the most amazing scene of all is of Louis returning to the prisoner of war camp in Japan where he had been imprisoned and that now imprisoned the very guards that had tormented him. To their astonishment Louis forgave the guards and even tried to meet with Watanabe to forgive him although Watanabe refused the meeting.
Louis is still alive and is 95 years old.
I encourage you to make a list of the people in your life who have " wronged " you, the people in your life you just " can ' t " forgive and the people in your life who you complain about. Let go of your " hot coals " and forgive these people. You may not condone what they did, but I urge you to forgive them. Not for their sake, but for yours.
