Forgiveness and Cheating II

It seems a lot of the traffic to my blog of late has been dealing with the issue of forgiveness and cheating. Now I do now know what the motiviation behind each individual was when they came to my blog and what they expected to find but I can say this much that cheating is as much a fact of life as anything else. By cheating I do not narrow myself to any specific case of cheating but use it in a very broad sense whereby the word "cheating" means to use wrong means to achieve an end, whatever that end maybe. Cheating will almost always involve someone that is harmed in the process, it need not necessarily be someone else it could even be you as is depicted my previous post (click here). Once the vile deed has been done there is no way to change things back to the way they are, so you will have to resign yourself to accepting how things are now. However, that does not mean you can't do anything about it. That is where the act of forgivness comes in. How you go about asking for that is really upto you but you must keep asking yourself honestly that, have you done enough to forgiven? Sometimes your actions would suffice but at others it won't but you can take consolation in the fact that you have done your best to make things better by accepting your fallibility and showing you are human.

If I were in your place .....

You would have done what?

I believe that phrase should be wiped off from the English language since it so misused. Usually this abominable phrase signifies that someone has made a blunder when considering the best course of action when presented with a dilemma e.g.

Person 1: It was either me taking all that abuse at this job or settling for a lower paid one. I chose the lower paid one.

Person 2: Are you nuts?! Don't you see the economy is so bad? If I were in your place ....


We all know what Person 2 would have done now don't we? A lot of people seem to froget when saying that phrase (If I were in your place) that had they been in the place of the other they would have done exactly as the other person would have done, because all the factors don't change and they would have come to the same conclusion. Person 2 seems to forget that had they been Person 1's position the external and internal factors that Person 1 is facing would still be the same the only thing that has changed would be the physical presence of Person 2 instead of Person 1. Two different objects occupy unique spaces in time and no one else can occupy that space except for the designated object. It's like a lock and key; one unique design fits a specific lock, so too is one unique event specific to a definite person. You can change that person with Tom, Dick or Harry and the result would be the same, the only thing that has changed would be the outward appearance the inward experience remains the same no matter what. So had Person 2 in some way taken up Person 1's space he would have be subjected to the forces of Person 1 and therefore arriving at the same conclusion as that of Person 1.

Next time, don't say that "had you been in the other's place" you would have done so and so because that is impossible. You would have ended up doing the exact same thing. Instead it would be much better to say "Had I your options I would have chosen so and so" because that shifts the focus from the unique place (which is occupied by one specific person at any one time) with constant forces (internally and externally) to a unique experience to a different place, and thus you would be entitled to tell us how you would have reacted had the options been presented to you.