Whenever you speak, speak justly,
even if a near relative is concerned.
—The Qur’an 6:152
I went into a recent meditation with the intention of reflecting on why I can be such a cold jerk at times. What emerged from the depths of the oddball memory banks was something I hadn’t thought about in years. I was standing on the edge of a boat launch with a cousin of mine, whom I didn’t get to see very often. We had just returned from a fishing trip with my dad, and he and I were playing on the shore.
My cousin was older and cooler, someone I looked up to, so I was shocked when I did something apparently foolish, and he immediately told on me. This resulted not only in my father scolding me, but I even got put in timeout when we got home.
Now, from your perspective, looking onto someone else’s childhood, I’m sure this seems like no big deal. “So you had to sit in timeout for a few minutes,” the critic says. “There are children starving in China!” But looking back through the eyes of a child who had little to no life experience for comparison, what happened here was an early act of betrayal by someone I admired.
To be thrown under the bus like that, and for seemingly no reason at all? Not to mention the fact that you come into my house, get me put in timeout, and then spend 1-on-1 time with my dad? Well, that didn’t sit right with me at all.
You better believe I stewed in that comfy prison chair while building a deep hatred for tattletales. And the smug look on his face while I was sentenced to twenty minutes of incarceration was the most punchable face I’ve seen to this day. It brewed a resentment in me that I’d apparently held onto for the next two decades.
That is until I finally let it go.