Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

Why You Should Pardon Family Too

Why You Should Pardon Family Too

The best way to forgive or pardon family is just to do it.

Why?

Because neither one of you opted into the relationship.

Isn’t that odd when you think about it?

Your spouse is the only one you get a say in choosing.

You don’t get to pick your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or children.

Pardon family because you should give someone handcuffed to you the benefit of the doubt.

And it’s the right thing to do.

I tell you, families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point you pardon the people in your family for being stuck together in all their weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to pardon anyone. Even yourself, eventually. It’s like learning to drive on an old car with a tricky transmission: if you can master shifting gears on that, you can learn to drive anything.

-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Poster Children For The Human Condition

Poster Children For The Human Condition

Some of us look like a poster child for the human condition.

You know what I am talking about.

We are ugly, or poor, or sick, or elderly, or neurotic.

Maybe some of us are just tired and could use a little therapy.

We are all such a mess, aren’t we?

But here is the thing.

The more we see each other’s mess, the less we have to pretend and hide.

Sometimes there is no more fertile ground for this than the family.

I just love that.

There are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition. But I like that, when who we are shows. Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it’s so touching when you get to see something real and human. I think that’s why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull—because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much.

-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Sterling Terrell