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Your best may not be any good but it's always good enough.***
If you do not subscribe to that, we are probably too far apart in our thinking ever to be friends. It just seems fundamental to me in how we should look at each other. When my children bring home their school reports, I am proudest of the marks they get for effort than I ever am of the marks they get for achievement. (The latter is in any case dependent on the former.)
Although of course no one is distinguished from another by just one characteristic, people can often be put in polar camps. Here is an instance: you are either prone to forgive or you are not. I suppose it comes down to whether you believe people should be judged by their outcomes or by their intentions.
It is a small step from believing that you should credit a good heart to believing that a good heart should prevail. Nor is it far to go to believe that good hearts must predominate because we do not strive to be bad.
And quickly we can realise that our sins are born mostly out of confusion about what our aims should be.
***
Did you see that it was axiomatic that you should believe a good heart should prevail?
posted by Dr Zen @ 9:59 pm
2 Comments:
But good enough for what? Even if you recognize the good heart of a person, and you know that they've given their best, one's own nature may require more than what that one's best is, which may be sad, and not what one wishes, but what can one do? Change one's nature to conform to the other?
I think that with friends it's a bit easier to be more accommodating of those times when good enough is less than ideal, but when it comes to relationships that require a more intimate and daily interaction, too many not good enoughs can be deadly, no matter how good the heart or the intentions. In the end it boils down to the actions, and what one is constitutionally capable of accepting or ignoring.
I forgive easily, maybe too easily, but it's so hard for me to judge intention, which is why I look to the result. Then again, results can be accidental. And, as AJ notes, what if the one party keeps doing all the forgiving, which is what the other person needs, but is not getting their own needs met in return? I'm not really distinguishing between a friendship and a romance because I think it's the same idea for both, such as one person always being very late or changing plans inconveniently or somesuch.
Yet, I still agree in principle that it would be good if we forgave each other more often in personal relationships.
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