FORGIVEMOJI

A campaign group in Finland has decided to crowdsource a forgiveness emoji.  Their website, Forgivemoji shows the submissions so far which they intend to submit to the Unicode Consortium and request the creation of a new emoji.

Looking at the emojis is an interesting way of seeing how people think about forgiveness.  The emojis focus on healing (.e.g a heart with bandaids).  However, many of the emojis show an exchange between one person and another.  They use clasped hands and hearts being exchanged.  

However regular readers will know that Dr Fred Luskin has a fundamentally different view of forgiveness.  From his perspective it is a choice we make for ourselves.  Forgiveness may be a group activity but it does not have to be.  These emojis communicate that forgiveness is part of an exchange between the wronged and the offender. However, this traps us in a bind.  If they do not apologise, if we are not in contact how do we ensure release from pain?

Forgiving someone else is a gift we give ourselves.  Dr Luskin gives examples of forgiving people who are dead, who we have lost touch with or who we do not wish to communicate with.  Forgiving in these circumstances highlights that forgiveness is a release we can control. Rather than being absolution for the other person, forgiveness frees us to move on.  

In life, I find this concept of forgiveness very comforting.  It restores power to the wronged person.  Even if the other person does not apologise or seek forgiveness, we can still be free.  We can choose to focus on our own health and not on the offender. Dr Luskin gives clear steps as to how to achieve this forgiveness.  It is not an instantaneous process, however, he manages to show the benefits for everyone in learning these skills. 

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