It is not uncommon to feel wronged. It happens to all of us. Not everything in the world is fair, at least from our own vantage point. Naturally, we all feel wronged and it happens fairly often.

And when we feel wronged, we react. Either in the form of writing scathing reviews online (this is more common with products and services we consume) or punching someone in the face (hasn't happened to me yet) or reacting in a passive-aggressive manner or sometimes even becoming disengaged (both of these are more common at the workplace and in relationships).

These reactions from us can vary in intensity and aggression.

Whenever I feel wronged, how aggressively I react (the intensity of my reaction) is inversely proportional to how long I wait before I act. The longer I wait, the lesser the intensity of my action.

Perhaps, this is why the common tactic prescribed to people with a short fuse is to count to ten before they act and send that scathing email or shout at someone (or hit someone).

This got me thinking about how forgiveness works.

In essence, forgiveness is the postponement of the reaction until such a time that we no longer feel that a reaction is merited.

For some actions, we can reach such a point quickly, and such actions are forgiven quickly and easily. For others, it might take us a long time to reach such a point, and these are actions that are not forgiven easily.

The probability of achieving a state of forgiveness, then, is inversely proportional to the amount of time we wait before we react to being wronged by someone.

Next time, show some patience.