Forgive an Accident. Which Is Harder Than It Sounds.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One of my happiness-project resolutions is to “Forgive an accident.” Now, you might think, why should I try to forgive an accident? After all, if something is an accident, there’s nothing to forgive. Accidents happen, we all know that.

Yes, I know that. Accidents happen. But I still find it hard not to be annoyed – and to act annoyed – in the face of certain accidents. Reminding myself of my resolution helps me to respond in the right way.

Here are just two examples:

1. When we were flying to Kansas City to spend Christmas with my parents, my daughter lost her “functional appliance.” If you’re not current with the latest parlance of orthodontia, this is like a fancy retainer. My daughter is supposed to wear it at all times, except when she’s eating. We were on the plane, she took it out to eat, and the next time she looked for it, it was gone. We all looked, couldn’t find it. We think it must’ve been thrown away when the stewardess took her food tray.

I was annoyed: she wouldn’t be able to wear this thing again until we were back in New York and had managed to replace it; getting a new one would be expensive; it would be inconvenient.

2. Recently, my husband left his wallet in a cab. The second he reached the sidewalk, he realized he didn’t have his wallet, and he raced down the street to stop the cab, but it was gone. He waited anxiously for two days before he had to admit to himself that it really wasn’t coming back. Before that, however, we had to cancel our credit cards.

I was annoyed: we’d put a lot of recurrent and online charges on one of the lost cards, so that number had to replaced many times, by me.

In each situation, I could feel the accident-causer bracing against my possible annoyance, and it was very, very hard to resist the temptation to say things like, “You should’ve been more careful!” “Now we’re going to have all this hassle to fix this!” “How could you have not noticed that you didn’t know where it was?” etc. But I realized – what was the point? My daughter felt terrible, my husband felt terrible. In general, they’re both very responsible (my daughter had never lost her F.A. before, and my husband had never lost a wallet before). They obviously hadn’t done these things on purpose. Why make a bad situation worse?

In each case, once the moment passed, I was very glad that I reacted mildly. (I even came up with a good idea about credit cards: now we have a card that never leaves the house that we use for online charges.) When you’re feeling bad about something you’ve done, it’s awful when someone adds to that feeling – you feel defensive, resentful, and misunderstood. I didn't want to cause that.

Also, one of my Personal Commandments is to Act the way I want to feel; although we think we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. By acting calm and forgiving, I help myself to feel calm and forgiving, instead of annoyed.

The resolution would be more accurately phrased as “Let go of an accident” or “Forget an accident” but somehow I need the little extra kick supplied by the word “forgive.”

How about you? Have you ever felt tempted to react harshly to something someone did, even though it was an accident?

* I loved this little video on Gimundo -- especially because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to use photographs to keep happiness-project resolutions like “Take time for projects” and “Be a treasure house of happy memories." The Black Lake Island project and Taking tourist photos of my own romance, for example, both use photographs.

* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 24,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format – trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line. It’s free.

Comments

[Positively Present]

Forgive an accident is a great reminder. You're right, it sounds like it would be easy but sometimes you can't help but be angry or annoyed about an accident, but there really is no sense getting angry about it since it wasn't done on purpose and it can't be undone.

[Tracey]

This is a perfect one for me today because I was in an (EXTREMELY minor) car accident. I was sitting at a light when someone hit me from behind. Not hard, but hard enough to nick the paint on the bumper. I got out and the lady who had hit started screaming that I had rolled backwards into her. Now, I am in an automatic transmission car, on a flat surface, with the car in drive. It is NOT POSSIBLE that I rolled backwards. This was a hard one to shake. Luckily there didn't appear to be any damage to HER bumper so we walked away because getting the cops and insurance involved on a holiday weekend for a scratch to my older vehicle was just not something I wanted to do, especially if I was going to be accused to boot. I don't care about the scratch so much but I'm still SEETHING about the injustice of the accusation. I'm working on this one!

[Alexis Grant]

So glad this popped up in my RSS feed today. You make such a good point: forgiving an accident makes the accidentee feel better, and it makes ME feel better. Must to put practice.

[A reader]

Thank you for this post. In the last hour, I was on my way to the grocery store and made a left turn on a very quiet street; I didn't see an old man (mid 60s, lean and tall, well dressed, Saturday loafers, someone's grandpa) crossing the street, but I stopped the car at least 3 feet from him, across the intersecting road. He obviously got scared, as did I. As he finished crossing the street, I completed my left turn and stopped the car, rolled down the windows to apologize with all my heart and make sure he was okay, but he proceeded to uttering the most atrocious curse words I had heard in a while. I continued apologizing.

He made me feel exactly how you describe.

That also got me to thinking: my car didn't hurt him; his own rage will. Reading your post was the only thing that made me feel better.

[Laura Cococcia]

How easy is it for us to react as we've been programmed to do - even to the seemingly small things in life. I like your approach (as usual). Just takes a moment for us to simply notice and put things in a bit of perspective. Getting annoyed at things we can't control only pushes us away from happiness. But it takes a bit of awareness to get there. Thanks Gretchen! Have a great weekend!

[Kim]

I definitely need to work on this. Great advice!

[Peter]

When I get angry at an accident I often ask myself, "why am I angry?". I usually notice that underneath the anger is embarrassment. Embarrassment that I didn't prevent the accident. I had the exact experience of "A Reader" above, getting close to a pedestrian when making a turn. I saw that I had to forgive myself first--only THEN was it easy to forgive the pedestrian's cursing. Unfortunately it took me a week to realize it that time!

[Meream]

If an accident happens to someone who ALWAYS has an accident, I get a bit annoyed. But it always feel so much better to just let things go.

[Morgan]

I am a kindergarten teacher. I often hear my students say, "It was an accident," to explain some mis-chance. I have gotten in the habit of saying (in a kindly tone), "Yes, but you still need to take responsibility for helping fix it, even if it is an accident."
I think it helps the accident-er to feel better if they have the power to fix some of their mistake, especially if they don't feel blamed. So they get paper towels or help put the block structure back together, or get their friend a bandaid.
Most of us are happy to accept responsibility if we don't feel blamed.

[Doug Erickson]

Just wanted to say "Thanks" for the link to Gizmundo. What a great site. You always find content and sites that are interesting and worth sharing with others.

[Lexi]

This is certainly true, and something I've finally gotten good at over the past year or so. Before then, I'd get flustered and aggravated by the slightest setbacks. I think because there was so much bigger, dramatic stuff going on in my life at the time there was simply no room for even the slightest additional headache.

Happy people, I find, don't fret over minor setbacks, accidents or disturbances. Freaking out over nothing is always indicative of other, deeper stuff going on that is making that person unhappy. Someone cutting in line or dropping a plate is never worthy of a screaming fit of any variety. It suggests deeper anguish.

[bridget]

You're right...it is harder than it sounds. I really like this post and will try to remember it when accidents happen. Thanks!

[LeahBear]

I reacted really badly to a mistake my husband made while painting the kitchen. I am so much angrier at myself for reacting like that than I ever was at him.

[green ink]

Gretchen, thank you for this timely reminder. I got a bit annoyed at my partner on the weekend for buying a blow up mattress without a pump (we don't have a bike pump so we had to blow it up manually!) whereas for an extra £3 he could have got a mattress with a pump. But when I'd got over my initial annoyance, I was glad I hadn't said anything because you're right - he's a responsible, intelligent man and didn't do it on purpose, so why add to an annoying situation and make him feel two inches tall?

I love your commandment "act how you want to feel". I try to live by it.

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[Maria Helm]

I would like to point out that you can "forgive an accident" even after you've already over-reacted. In fact, you should.

My husband apologized to me for over-reacting to something that was an accident for which we were both a little at fault. I was not surprised at how upset he was at the time of the incident. But I was VERY touched when he apologized to me, said it wasn't really my fault, and that he was partly to blame. I still felt bad taht it happened, but I no longer felt like it was coming between us, and that was very important.

[Sam]

I can forgive the accident and respond with kindness, but I have so much trouble forgiving the regular accidents (can they be called accident if they happen every week or month).

If Mr. Sam loses his debit card at least once a month (its lost right now) how do I forgive, ignore, etc. when I cannot understand how he keeps losing it.

If Mr. Sam misplaces his keys once a week and asks me where they are (have you seen my keys, where are my keys, I can't find my keys) or worse misplaces my keys after using my car because he just thorws the keys where ever, how do I forgive, ignore, overlook.

I don't want to nag/remind him to put his keys in the same spot, but I hate hearing that question week after week.

[gareth garvey]

Great advice. It becomes easier with time and then we(I) become complacent and relapse. Do you have any tips for avoiding this?

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[infants]

I am a kindergarten teacher. I often hear my students say, "It was an accident," to explain some mis-chance. I have gotten in the habit of saying (in a kindly tone), "Yes, but you still need to take responsibility for helping fix it, even if it is an accident