On Turning 47: Your Forgiveness
By: Omer Ehtisham
Tags: Self Improvement, Growth, Forgiveness, Love, Acceptance

Each year, since my 45th birthday, I have been gifting myself ‘personal-lessons’ spelling out how I want to direct the course of my remaining time here. At first blush, embracing my faults may seem like a strange ‘present’ to award myself. As I have toyed with this idea for some time, I now realize that my path, my growth, my happiness and well-being or whichever yardstick measure I use to size up, are all critically linked to this. So this year, I have less to say to guide myself. Instead, I have a big ask of you — this year I ask for and seek your forgiveness.

Before jumping to 47, let me share how this process began — and how I started to chart new direction for myself at 45. There was really no grand plan. I was sitting at my desk on the eve of turning 45 with my paper notebook and pen sitting in front of me. I picked up the pen and spontaneously wrote the following:

RULES TO SELF TURNING 45!

Always ‘keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel’ — no one else can or will Take nothing for granted because all assumptions change over time Don’t fall asleep without making peace with today Identify, denounce and reject negativity immediately Critical thinking is great but cynicism is poison — check yourself Only a handful of people really matter –embrace them so they know it too Truth resides within, bank on it However quirky, never compromise identity — it’s all you have to offer Kindness, connection and understanding are what really matter, work hard to create it everyday

The entire process took what felt like less than a minute — there was no need to edit, there was nothing to correct or rephrase. I re-read it once, I shut the book and went to bed. Over the next few days I published it, and have since, held myself to these simple standards and principles that are my truths.

In the 728 days that have ensued from sitting at my desk that night, I have made life-altering decisions in order to be more compliant to the way of being these 9 points demand. It has taken 2 years to finally be able to take stock, to be able to say ok to some and not so ok, in terms of progress on others. That said, rules 3, 4, 5 and 9 still need lots of work. As I turn 47, rather than turn inwards to focus on these, I feel it necessary to ask your forgiveness from you who I have hurt, you who I have wronged, or otherwise made feel uncomfortable in any way whatsoever.

To you,

Today, I seek your forgiveness with sincerity — because there are no justifications, (no, none whatsoever), for the hurt I have been responsible for in my interaction within your life. I want you to know that I have taken the time to reflect upon, understand and accept my myriad of errors ranging from, but not limited to, my actions and my choice of words, my intonation- my volume, my wrongly interpreted feeling about you, my imposition of myself/my ideas upon you, my aggressiveness, my stubbornness, my inebriation and from that, my consequent of lack of restraint. I hold myself to a higher standards and I am truly grateful to have the opportunity to say all this to you, to say I am sorry, without intellectual spin, without shame or guilt but only an open and clear heart.

At 47, I have silenced my inner critic for good. For decades, this pesky chap has conveniently divided my traits and habits, into my ‘good self ‘and ‘not so good self’. In past years, my not so good self has been really easy for my mind to alienate and disassociate from so as to proclaim each year, ‘Omer, that wasn’t really you’. This year, the demise of my inner critic accompanies a very rude awakening; it says — ‘Omer, not only was that actually you, but in many ways it is still you unless you choose to do something about it.” And so the first thing to do is to accept, to take responsibility for and to embrace with equal love so many of the deficits that are me with which I find deep discomfort.

I see no other way to evolve and grow here on out. If, and until we meet again.

Love and respect,

Omer