#exemplia gratis:

[frogeyedape]

I am so unbelievably pissed off. FUCK HOAs

Oh, my trash/recycling bin can't be visible except on pickup day? Ok whatever fine I hate you but I can deal with this

Weekly inspections?????? FU FU FU FU FU

SECOND NOTICE ALSO WE'RE CHARGING YOU MONEY TO SEND YOU CERTIFIED MAIL OF THIS TOTALLY LEGIT TOTALLY SECOND NOTICE OF WHAT IS ACTUALLY A VIOLATION cue me: checks notes. Hmm. My recycling bin was. on the curb. on recycling pickup day. You know. The day it has to be out. The day it is motherfucking ALLOWED TO BE FUCKING OUT AND VISIBLE.

so. 1) not a violation

I have sent them the trash AND recycling pickup schedules, which are DIFFERENT, btw

I have disputed the fact of the violation

I have disputed the linking of this "violation" to a previous violation MONTHS AGO--their "first notice" in this case was a "Courtesy Notice" LITERALLY 5 MONTHS AGO and they've done so many inspections since then and my bin CLEARLY WASN'T OUT IN THOSE INTERVENING MONTHS so WTMFH

So I am posting like a crazy person here instead of sending the absolutely deranged email I almost sent (I did send a slightly less deranged version with the disputes, and requesting a hearing)

OMG. It has been. Less than one hour since I learned this fun fun news. My bin was out YESTERDAY, y'all. YESTERDAY. I am going to blow a gasket

[frogeyedape]

There's something odd in the phrasing between the people who agree vs disagree with OP here. Notice:

OP: if you do a bad/harmful thing, your victim doesn't need to forgive you, but you need to forgive yourself

Disagreer: if you do a bad/harmful thing, even if your victim forgives you, you should never forgive what you did

Do you [generic you] see? OP: forgive the transgressor. Disagreer: never forgive the transgression!

It's like the disagreer thinks they're saying the same thing ([do/don't] forgive transgressor), but they're stuck on forgiving *the transgression,* which OP did not mention or explicitly address as needing forgiveness. This is one of those things where I think people sometimes have difficulty separating the DOER from the DEED, where they equate "did X" with "X-doer." But the reality is anyone can do X, and having done X once doesn't mean you'll always do X, or that you were destined to do X, or even that you'll ever do X again.

Exemplia gratis: A person committed a crime and was sentenced for it. The word for crime-doer is criminal. Is this person (forever and always and immutably) a criminal? For one criminal act? For, shall we say, jaywalking?

Lemme give you my answer: no! A person is a person is a person, and a person can do good and bad and stupid and smart and helpful and hurtful and wonderful and terrible things--and none of the things they do prevents them from choosing to do something else good or bad or...etc. A "criminal" can be 99.9% law-abiding, and never commit any grave crimes. An absolute asshat murderer can still be a loving parent to a kid who thinks the world of them.

Doing one good deed doesn't erase a bad deed; it puts both deeds out there. No action cancels out or balances any other action; you just end up with a bunch of actions that change the world in various ways. Someone who does wrong needs to know they can still do good in order to do better, and that, shockingly, may require them to admit to themself they're not irredeamably evil, that they did a bad thing but they themself can move forward and not do that bad thing again. "Forgive yourself" does not equal "absolve yourself of all responsibility;" it means "stop wallowing in guilt and focus on actually doing better."

the thing is, if your younger self was a bigot or an abuser, u can't make people forgive you. but you still gotta forgive yourself, like that's non-negotiable, dude. that happens before u can even ask the question of earning forgiveness from anyone lese