So more often than not, we tend to think, we are doing others a favour when we forgive them, but I beg to differ, that's far from the truth. As Muslims, we are told everything happens for a reason, and that God is all-knowing. So while someone's actions might have hurt us it might have caused us tremendous pain, but when we look at the bigger picture, we find that perhaps it's better for us to try and forgive, for this helps to get rid of negative emotions inside us and allows us to have energy for much better and positive things in our lives. Anger and sadness are emotions which we might display when we feel hurt by a person's actions, but too often than not, actions are not enough to interpret a person's behaviour. We often overlook the intentions, of course, this intention is not something we have access to. But as humans, I think we will do ourselves good to give people the benefit of the doubt even if that might not be the case because the truth is we don't have access to that intention. Of course, we may ask the person for their intention, most often than not we don't and make judgements, and this is when the problem arises. We feel hurt by a person's actions, and we might get angry or sad especially if the action hurts us, even if we know that the intention wasn't to hurt especially if these people are our family and friends, we can still feel hurt, but if we look at it from a bigger perspective. The one who controls the creation is aware of it, the creator, allowed it to happen, and he is all-knowing, he knows more than we do, perhaps in the hurt, there is a lesson for us to learn and if we can understand the lesson, then it would soften our hearts in forgiving people for the actions that they do. If however this behaviour of theirs is something that occurs frequently and causes you pain, perhaps you can accept that as being who they are, we can't change people, only Allah can, we can give advice but we still can't change them, and insha'Allah with prayer we can pray to Allah to ease our pain, or perhaps pray to be more tolerant and perhaps not be bothered by the actions that hurt us.

Our perception of the behaviour can change how we feel about an action causing us pain. If we try to look at the behaviour causing us pain or harm as an opportunity to learn something from the creator after all nothing happens except by the creator's will (Qur'an 9:51), then surely we will be able to forgive others when they wrong us, and also learn something from that situation. We need to also accept that it is part of life, to hurt someone and to feel hurt, these are all forms of lessons by the Creator, and this is because we have different personalities. What is a blessing for one person is a curse for another, is a famous saying most of us know. However each one of us can at least try to see any situation from a positive perspective, and this would forgiving ourselves and others easier for us. We also need to remember that God is the most forgiving and most merciful and if we want his mercy and forgiveness we need to learn and pray to him to make it easy for us to forgive others, as anger or sadness takes away from her blessings, and we are unable to learn a lesson from what's happening to us.