Shed the virus. Wash Your Hands of Old Hurt, Anger

April 6th, 2021 by admin

The best legal problems, we often underscore in this column, are the ones which never occur. When we plan, the law can help us avoid many pitfalls.

There is another insight which is like unto it: Legal remedies cannot solve what are at the heart personal relationship challenges. The law did not create these problems, and it is not able to solve them, either, if there is not a different way of viewing the problem.

When we deal with neighbors, family members and friends, disputes, egged on sometimes by social media comments, often center on sharp words. Over time, someone begins to carry a grudge or an old hurt. Or a family member feels as if they were treated unfairly.

Until a person sheds the demon of feeling slighted or being treated unfairly, they are not going to get out of its gravitational pull. And hiring lawyers, as lawyers are quick to tell you, rarely helps.

The solution for this? I think the common direction doctors give us in these virus times is to mask our faces (words) and wash our hands (shed) regularly to avoid some problems give us helpful metaphors about how to think of these often-avoidable and very virus-like disputes.

In my work, lawyers sometimes see families carry harsh feelings to the death of a beloved parent. Shedding an old hurt to which you feel you may be justly entitled may not be the easiest thing you ever do, although it may be among the best things you ever do. But you must be willing to forgive and forget. There is no try on this, as Yoda famously said.

The other piece of advice? Having seen the ugly end of it all, an angry word rarely takes you to any place worth going. Wash your hands of an old hurt as soon as you possibly can. Because the resulting internal wreckage of an old hurt may make it among the worst viruses of all.

We find ourselves this weekend at an intersection of the religious faiths of so many of us. If you really want to rid yourselves of one of the most destructive viruses in your life, resolve to wash your hands and shed a personal dispute you carry with you. And I bet you know where to start. Because if you carry it until the other person is gone, it is on your Ledger of Regret for good. A chance you could have taken, a clear path to a real chance at resolution, but one blocked by stubborn pride.

Saying you are sorry in these circumstances sounds so simplistic. But don’t we all have something in a dispute with a friend or loved one we regret doing? Start with the person in the mirror, as the song tells us. In my experience the size of your character shows when you take the first step. You just never know where it might take you.

If you asked every lawyer or counselor who has dealt with clients who carry personal disputes and old unresolved hurts a question — what do they all have in common — what would they tell us? Their lives would have been better served if they had that word or harsh comment back and left it unsaid, or they gave up that old hurt.

There is a vaccine for this virus if we have the wherewithal to take it. When the character of our life writes its ending on this, will it lance this wound of the heart and spirit?

If our different but respective faiths agree on this path to put these old hurts behind us, don’t you think we should, too? “Do unto others,” I think it goes.

Remember: An informed choice is a smart choice.

Tags: Law

Posted in: On the Way to the Courthouse