A friend of mine posted this on Facebook today, and I thought I would borrow it:
Just overheard on the “Hippie Peace Freaks” message board:
“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept the apology you never got.”
Just consider how in line this is from the counsel from Elder Bednar:
When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.
In the grand division of all of God’s creations, there are things to act and things to be acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:13–14). As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity for independent action and choice. Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents, however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to an offensive or hurtful situation.
Choosing NOT to be offended may be the most powerful thing you can do. It strengthens you and helps you concentrate on things that are truly important. Imagine how much better the world would be if all of the people who get offended all the time simply learned to let things go. And if we need to follow the advice of the hippies and pretend that the person who offended us has apologized, and we have accepted the apology in our hearts, so much the better.