It's okay to not take the high road.

If you know me well enough you must be aware how much I love Taylor Swift.

The reason I admire her so much is because I have always felt as if her songs express my turmoil and my emotions way better than words can. It's as if my thoughts have been given the expression they deserve. And it's so easy to love her because apart from being a terrific singer and songwriter, she is also a person one can look up to.

She has always been someone who stood her ground, she never lets criticism bring her down, and she really built a castle out of all the bricks her haters had thrown at her. I respect her for being unapologetically herself and for always choosing to be a humble person despite all the backlash she has faced throughout her career. As Gema Camerlengo said in the 2014 Billboard awards before presenting the award to Taylor for Woman of the Year, "I found Taylor because of her music, but I stayed with her because of her character".

Why exactly am I talking about Taylor Swift? It's because of this interview I came across. This was an interview taken way back in 2019 when she was promoting her 7th studio album "Lover". The interviewer points out how Swift always has one song that addresses the haters and then further asks, "Why sing to the haters?". Swift calmly says that when they stop coming for her, she will stop singing to them. She then further says how people say you have to forgive and forget to move past something but she believes you don't have to do any of this to move on. "You don't have to forgive and you don't have to forget to move on. You can move on without any of those things happening". She adds "You just become indifferent and then you move on".

I'll be very honest with you, I have always been a "forgive and forget" person. I used to let a lot of things slide because I thought when I am holding onto something, it's holding me back from moving on. I felt as if a closure could only be done through either the person changing for the better or you just forgive them internally and move past it. But what an interesting angle is this to just be indifferent and then move on.

Not every person deserves your forgiveness and I don't think it's wise to just forget. When you are forgiving and forgetting the hurtful actions of someone who has shown no remorse, you are disrespecting yourself and all the suffering you went through. Forgiveness is meant for people who have enriched your life in some way. If insurmountable pain and suffering is all they have caused, then you just have to move on.

We have been conditioned to believe that every person is capable of change and there's no denying in that. But change doesn't happen automatically. It's not a fictional character from a novel who is meant to have a character development for the story to proceed further. As harsh as it might sound, some people don't learn from their mistakes and they don't have any willingness to change for the better. And that's when you do yourself a favour and set up boundaries.

No, you are not being cruel and no, you don't have to find excuses to give them another chance. Please remember that you are the one who is truly looking out for yourself, it's completely fine to take such steps which might not be befitting to the norms of "forgiving and forgetting". Self preservation doesn't make you selfish and sometimes it's okay to not take the high road.