The concept of forgiveness is one that transcends religion. Every culture in the world has words of wisdom concerning the forgiveness of others. One Chinese proverb reads, "A man who seeks revenge should dig two graves."

I suspect this has to do with the fact that we recognize the important role co-operation with others plays in our survival and how holding a grudge can be detrimental to our quality of life. For example, you are angry with your co-worker and you react by having a soap opera drama face off with them in the employee break room. Not only has your work environment become strained but say that co-worker gets promoted to higher position and becomes your boss. Your anger has just possibly cost you your job.

But forgotten among all the encouragement and admonitions were the instructions on how to forgive someone. It's like being given the secret code to a vault full of treasure but no clue as to how to input it. I've searched far and wide on the webernet to bring you a few possible combinations that may help open the door to a better life:

1. Acknowledge how you feel. We have been raised in a society that wants people, especially men, to repress their pain and anger. This is extremely unhealthy and only makes things worse. Talk to a trained therapist or a trusted friend about how the situation made you feel. Sometimes all we really need is to vent.

2. Realize that the other person is human and subject to making mistakes. No one is perfect. Repeat. No one is perfect. People can only do the best they can given the circumstances they find themselves in. This by no means is an excuse for poor behavior but realizing that sometimes people trip and fall despite their best efforts will go a long way towards helping you forgive them when they do.

3. Understand that a good portion of humans suffer from Cluelessness. Thus they are unaware of what effect their behavior had on you. Your girlfriend may not know that snapping her gum is intensely annoying because no one, including you, has ever told her. Again this is not an excuse but understanding that sometimes people behave poorly simply because they don't know any better will help you deal with them.

4. Understand that you don't know the whole story. In 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', Stephen Covey describes a situation where he was on public transportation and one of the passengers, a man, was letting his children run wild. Finally, Covey spoke up. The man apologized saying that he was a little off center because his wife had just died. Though we like to think we are the center of the universe, people have other things going on in their lives besides their interactions with us and sometimes our negative experiences with someone is just our misfortune of being sucked into the aftermath.

5. Put it in perspective. Sometimes we make a huge deal out of a little thing. Is it really worth it?

6. Become aware of your thoughts and try to neutralize counterproductive ones. Despite understanding the previous tips we still feel anger or have thoughts of revenge. When that happens try to refocus that energy into something else such as a hobby or a random act of kindness to a stranger. What you are trying to do is make something positive come from something negative which in the end will make you feel good.

7. Understand that forgiving someone is a purely selfish act and that if they benefit from your forgiving them at all, it is purely coincidental. You are not giving power to those that hurt you, you are taking it away.

The inability to forgive often stems from a feeling of powerlessness and the need to punish those that have hurt us. The victim sits and stews over the injustice done to them as if that will do anything to affect the perpetrator. In reality, the person who hurt you may have moved on with their life or they may not even know that they hurt you. Which means that the only person you are affecting by not forgiving is yourself.

Forgiving someone is not the same as forgetting what they have done. You need to take from the incident the lessons that need to be learned. If a friend steals from you, you should understand and forgive their weakness, however, you should then learn to keep your valuables in a safe place.

Like all worthwhile things in life, learning to forgive takes awareness, effort and patience. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the lighter your burdens will be. See for yourself, forgive someone today.