Bitterness is the poison you take hoping it will kill someone else!

Anger is something that is easy to grab on to and hard to let go of. Your anger is based on the thing that you think someone else took from you or owes you in life. The problem is that anger does not return that thing taken from you and it will bind up your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. You owe it to yourself to go ahead and cancel the debt you are waiting for that other person to pay. They most likely cannot or will not and canceling the debt by forgiveness frees you up to get on with your life. Get healthy whether they choose to get healthy or not. Only people who have been freed by forgiveness are truly free to forgive others. Go ahead and get free: forgive for your sake and theirs.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

So many people spend all their energy worrying about and protecting their reputation and in doing so neglect, or even sacrifice, their character. Character is who you are when no one else is around or will find out. Your reputation is what others think you are, right or wrong. Why not seek to simply live a life of true character so that who you are is consistent with who others think you are. That way you will never be nervous about the "truth" coming out.