FORGIVENESS AND PERSONAL GROWTH
(Posted 2010-03-19 22:42:17 by Ray Lopez)
You hear it again and again: Forgiveness is one of the important pillars
of human wisdom and even human happiness. Such talk is easy to discount if
you've never had any real challenges before, and quite frankly I never
really believed in the power of forgiveness until fairly recently.
Last June, on the Monday after Father's Day, I decided to quit my job as a
Lead System Engineer at a large financial services company in San Antonio.
It was the culmination of 6 months of sheer misery for me, as I had
stumbled into a nest of some of the most vile people I have ever
encountered in my professional life. As it turned out, the whole company
culture was one made up of "good ol' boy" networks. And if you were not
fortunate enough to be deemed worthy to be part of one of these networks,
then your co-workers and your managers simply made life miserable for you.
You were actively shunned, humiliated, and made to feel as badly as
possible.
The canned response to a situation like this is, "No one can make you feel
badly without your permission." I generally agree with this view, but
there are sometimes when the old joke is true: Just because you're
paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you.
My manager turned out to be a classic psychopath, of the sort with a very
charming personal style, yet with no conscience or integrity whatsoever.
Even with a Ph.D. in psychology, I failed to recognize this until it was
too late. I fell out of favor with him, and that was magnified by the fact
that I was also out of favor with the reigning in-group. From about March
until June, 2009, each day at work was an exercise in subjugation and
humiliation for me. I was slowly being phased out of all aspects of my
team's operations, and nothing I did was ever good enough. Every month or
so, my psychopathic manager would meet with me and give me his latest
non-constructive opinion of what I had been doing wrong lately. On the
Friday prior to Father's Day, we had one of these meetings and he told me
that he was putting me on a "performance improvement plan." At this
workplace, a performance improvement plan was simply a method used to begin
the documentation process necessary to fire you within the next 3 to 6
months.
After that meeting I called my wife and told her what had happened. We
both agreed I was about to be fired. She was also deeply concerned about
me, as I had been coming home every day deeply depressed for the past few
months. I was earning a nice six-figure salary at this job, and I told my
wife I should stick it out for these final months while we cut back our
expenses and saved some money. She disagreed, and told me that I needed to
quit immediately, and that we'd figure out the financial situation later.
Over the weekend we discussed it further, and by Sunday morning I had made
the decision to quit this job. It was a terrifying prospect, since my wife
earned less than half of what I earned, and I had no other job lined up.
But ultimately I decided that I had been wronged and that I just had to
leave a toxic situation. That job had killed me emotionally and
spiritually, and it was about to kill me physically as well.
So, on the Monday after Father's Day, I go into work and await the arrival
of the psychopath. When he shows up I sit down at his desk and tell him
I'd like to give my 2 weeks notice. His answer: "OK, no problem." He
told me they'd pay me for 2 weeks of work but that I would be leaving there
today. As I cleaned out my desk, one of his henchgirls came by and asked
me what I was doing. When I told her I had quit, it was obvious that she
could barely contain her glee.
A couple of hours later, after all the paperwork was completed, the
psychopath escorted me to the exit, and we parted ways without saying a
word. I had a tremendous sense of relief that day! That afternoon I
started applying for jobs, and because God takes care of me, I found a job
that Thursday. Yes, it paid much less than my old job, but it was a job
nonetheless, one working with good people.
For the next 3 months or so after I quit that job, I actually experienced
symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sleepless nights, depression,
and unexplainable bouts of rage. The rage I felt was sheer hatred and
anger, because I had been treated so badly by people who were so blissful.
The unfairness of it all made my blood boil.
This whole experience taught me a lot of things. First off, I learned what
it was like to work in a pathological corporate culture. I had been
spoiled by working for companies like EDS and IBM. Sure, EDS and IBM had
their problems, but for the most part my experiences there were very
positive. Their cultures were one where creativity, collaboration, and
professionalism were the rule, the exact opposite of this workplace I had
just left. In order to grow as a professional, as a leader, and as a
person, I had to experience a workplace where service, loyalty, honesty,
and integrity didn't matter.
The second thing I had learned from all of this was the power of
forgiveness. I could have let my PTSD get worse, and let the rage build
up, but that's something that would have ultimately done me in. That's
what anger and hatred do to you. They eat you up and cause you to die from
within. Meanwhile those that have wronged you have completely forgotten
about you. As some friends said to me, "Why let those bastards live rent
free in your head?" This is where I learned about the power of
forgiveness, the power of letting go of your anger, and of letting go of
the memories of your past wounds. By forgiving, you start the process of
healing yourself, of learning from you past mistakes and of making sure
that your anger and rage do not manifest themselves in some horrible way.
I had to convince myself that I had simply fallen into a bad situation with
some immoral people. Yes, they are immoral, but they're human beings,
loved by God every bit as much as I am. Forgiveness is much more than just
rationalizing what happens to you. It is an active process of detaching
yourself from your pain, and replacing that pain with love for those who
have hurt you.
I can honestly say I have completed half of that process, namely detaching
myself from the pain. I see it now as a set of valuable lessons learned,
and nothing more. But I am still working on the part of replacing my pain
with love for those who hurt me. I think that will take more time. And
more prayer. In the end I'll be a better person for it, one who truly
understands the power of forgiveness and one who has grown more as a
spiritual being and child of God.
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