How many times I have come across somebody shun a friendship due to what somebody did in his YESTERDAY is simply surprising.

Time and again, I see a guy who says that he comes from an average college, and people shun him saying, "He didn't study in a good enough college. Do you think our value systems will match?" Valid question. But let me ask you this: Did you take the trouble to find out what is it that he did that put him in the same room as you TODAY, despite not going to a great college back then? No you didn't. Why?

I see people time and again giving up on new friendships and relationships, because of the PAST of a certain somebody. I see people ignore the fact that this past of somebody wasn't in their control. People REFUSE to accept the fact that a boy's childhood having been in poverty has NOTHING to do with the kind of person he is raised to be, people cannot accept that an entire family with psychiatric disorders isn't  ONE girl's fault, they cannot believe that a sandalwood tree can grow in a forest filled with venomous snakes. I again ask you this: WHY?

There's also another thing. People have friendships, they have relationships, and they screw up. Whoever screwed up apologizes for his/her mistake, but they are rarely, truly, forgiven. People remember the faults and misgivings of others like as if their lives depended on it, and funny thing is, they EXPECT people to repeat their old mistakes. If God wanted us humans to keep tab of everybody's faults and vices, he ought to have blessed us with better memories! Why can't people truly forgive? Why?

I know why. Because no matter how much we CLAIM to live in the present, we are all just the same. The prisoners of the PAST. Even as we enter new stages of lives with friends, we don't let go of the hurt they caused us a decade ago. Even as we make our way to bigger meeting rooms and conferences, we still define ourselves by the colleges we went to, the medals we received, the society we were brought up in.

There's something TERRIBLY wrong with this, and hardly a few of us know what. If we still use the colleges we went to and the society we grew up in as defining points, what is it that we're really doing in our present, from which we have NOTHING to define ourselves with? What about all the time in between our childhoods and NOW, in between our college-going years and NOW, what has happened in between? Is it just a void?

And talking about forgiving, I'm sure even if we were blessed with better memories, we'd fill it up with the memories of how people hurt us and betrayed us, instead of remembering that stranger who helped us. We'd remember to use it to give it right back to those people who called themselves friends, but we will just NOT let it go. True story?
It might be hard, but do give it a shot. Tomorrow if somebody apologizes, truly forgive and give them another chance. If somebody you meet who is glorious today tells you of an exact opposite past, don't walk away. Give people of the PRESENT a chance. They have successfully let go of who they were and are who they have become. Can you let go of who they were, and see them for who they ARE?