THE CHAIN OF FORGIVENESS For a long time, I want to do something good for humanity. That can appear a little pretentious, but it is with humility that I would like to help the others. It is always said to me that one needs money, means, displacements, time, or anything else I don't know …! But for me, I don't think so. A few times ago, I saw a very moving film '' Pay it Forward '', which gave me an idea. On the basis of the precept ''Have love one for another'', I said to myself that it was perhaps not necessary to go to Africa or India to find people unhappy. I believe that there is an absolute evil which fills up our hearts of hatred and revenge, jealousy and competition, and that all the wars come from there. How many are we to feel rancour or indifference for one or more persons? Who can go deep down without finding down there hatred hidden under years or education? This emotion is an acid which corrodes you a little every day. It weakens us, embitters us. Why to keep this poison in the warmth whereas it is so simple to get rid of it? To forgive and apologize. That's a true relief! Isn't it child's play? Did you never ask your child to go and apologize even if it is a mere trifle? And didn't it then resume its plays with a light heart? Here, it is easy like a pie! The advantages of this action are incredible! Immediately, you'll feel free, and then the benefits will spread over your whole life, over the people you love. You'll want only one thing: to hand over and thus people you see suffering can be relieved in turn. An example: a few years ago, you verbally injured a member of your family, and since, you haven't spoken to him, or then the course of the life continue as before without resolving the situation. Without any judgment, without asking anything in return, without reconsidering the past, being able to say to him: "Sorry, sorry to have done you harm, it is not what I wanted. I do not feel any more hatred for you, and I hope that you could forgive me one day." Or another example even more difficult; one harm you, enormously. Each time you think it back, a bitter taste comes back in your mouth. To be able to say: "I forgive you, I do not feel any more hatred for what you did to me. I want to go on my life without this millstone of rancour round my neck." Obviously, you'll need a lot of strength at the beginning, but that will help you so much and the price to be paid is ridiculous. This idea costs nothing, it will earn a lot. It is free from any religious idea and never mind if it is utopian, I want to believe in it. Perhaps at the beginning, you will not be sincere in your apologizes, but it takes time to find the way, the way that bring you towards a form of freedom…       Jean François Pignon