To err is human; to forgive, divine.
—Alexander Pope
In Georgia in the mid-1930s, when he was but ten years old, Jimmy Carter was fishing with his father. As they caught fish, his father attached their growing haul to a trotline that he hooked onto Jimmy’s belt loop, a point of great pride for the boy.
But then, several hours later, Jimmy looked down and realized that the line had broken or become unclipped without him noticing. Frantically, desperately, he dove into the water, searching, hoping, terrified his father would be upset. “What’s wrong?” his father asked. “I’ve lost the fish, Daddy.” “All of them?” his father replied. “Yes, sir, yes, sir” was all Jimmy could say through his tears.
“Daddy was rarely patient with foolishness or mistakes,” Carter would reflect eighty years later. But then, after a long pause, his father smiled and said, “Let them go, Hot. There are a lot more fish in the river. We’ll get them tomorrow.” All those years later, it was this moment of patience and kindness and forgiveness that Carter remembered. The fish no longer mattered; in fact, they never did matter. What mattered was that his father knew what Jimmy needed in that moment.
What about you? Do you understand the power of leniency and tolerance? Can you let things go? Can you control your temper and frustrations? Do you know when it’s time to push and when it’s time to pull them in close to you?