“You can either be right or you can be happy.”

“You can either be right or you can be happy.”

A wise friend dropped that truth bomb on me yesterday. I looked at him and thought, “Yeah right.”

See, I am a righteously right Ramsey. (A nick-name my sister bestowed on us.) And I have the genetic ability to hold a grudge for, well, forever. My dad, a man who I have praised profusely on this site, would not eat at McDonalds until the day he died. Why? A neighborhood kid was harassed there by a police officer there in the mid 1970’s. Now, I will say this: Dad’s decision probably gave him an extra decade — Fast food isn’t a performance enhancer and all. But really. That’s a quality grudge.

I have a plank in my eye, too. There are a lot of things I need to be singing “Let it go” about.

Time out: There are things that you should never forget. I get that. But what I’m talking about are the things that are over with, done and keeping you from being happy. They are the things that play as a loop in your hand. They are the offenses that are sometimes unforgivable. But are they worth a lifetime of misery? Can yo work past them? Are they worth holding onto as you die angry?

Honesty alert: I’m struggling with it. I have a few loops in my head that I’m trying to quiet.

It all comes down to the forgiveness thing. And I really struggle with that. But don’t we all.

I thank my friend for the advice and I hope I can take it to heart as I address all my relationships. In the meantime, I am going to try to get the damned song “Let it go” out of my head. I won’t be happy until I do.