Your Worst Enemy

If the truth were known, all people would be called good people.  The fact there are people who are called good, while others are called bad – that there are a them and an us – means the truth hasn’t been fully understood.  That truth is the utter necessity of forgiving everybody for everything.  No exceptions.  No expectations.

Forgiveness, like its opposite, resentment, usually has unintended consequences.  Forgiveness, or the lack thereof, probably has more unintended consequences than just about anything else in this world.  It should be unmasked as the “unknown” cause behind many evils and even some just plain old ills.

What if, after you died, you could see and spend time with – all the time you wanted – with every person you loved who passed on before you?  What if you could know and communicate with your loved ones more intimately than you ever had while you were on earth with them?  What if you could hold them closer, share your feelings, your ecstasy, your very experiences with them, without words?  And what if they could communicate the same way with you?  But what if the price you had to pay for that kind of intimacy was this:  you had to enjoy the same embrace with your worst enemies as well.  Would you make that choice?

And what if I told you could have everything you ever wanted on this planet, all the time, all the vacations without those damn time shares, the money, the luxury, the yachts, good health, undying prosperity for you and those you loved.  Unreasonable happiness.  Abundance.  Wealth, inside and outside.  Health.  Peace of mind.  But what’s the hitch?  Well of course, your most hated enemies, the persons who you think deserve some type of comeuppance, are all going to get the same things.  And what’s worse, you’re the one who has to give it to them.  Would you pay that price?  Would you give it to them?  Would you deny yourself the gifts of peace and happiness just so you could keep it from your enemies?  By resenting someone or something, that’s exactly what you do.  You deprive yourself of the greatest gifts you can have: peace of mind and joy.  You deprive yourself because you deprive your enemies.

Most of us aren’t willing to pay this price for joy, to have these things for ourselves.  The proof is that most people aren’t really happy or at peace.  We don’t want to give these things to the people we think have harmed us because we’d consider it a subtraction from our own lives, a tribute and a ransom we must pay to our adversaries. We deprive ourselves of these gifts because we withhold them from those we envy or hate or resent.  Whatever I withhold from others, I deprive myself of, too.  So whatever I give to you, I give to me, be it poison or elixir, love or grief.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within