Forgiveness is as much a gift to yourself as it is a gift to another.

Hatred is as or more
destructive to the person who hates than it is to the individual that is hated. As such forgiving
someone is not only an act that benefits others but also an act that is beneficial for oneself. I
have often found anger and hatred to be more destructive than beneficial. Anger in my life has
not only at times exhausted me emotionally but has also greatly harmed my relationships with
other people. To this day there are some old friends that I have yet to have spoken to in years
due to the anger I still hold in my own heart. The only real way to avoid these damages is to
avoid holding on to one's anger. It is only by letting by forgiving our enemies and moving
forward that we can let go of our anger and all of the pain it causes. When we finally let go of
our anger we can finally be at peace with ourselves and can truly improve a people.
In the poem “The Poison Tree” Irish author William Blake describes his “wrath” as an
apple tree that grows over time. The poem states that the narrator “watered it in fears…my
tears”. In the end, the product of his wrath described in the poem as an apple ends up killing the
man at which his anger was directed. This may initially sound like a good ending for the Narrator
after all, his foe has been slane and he can now rest easy. However, when you take the time to
look over the poem in detail you realize that this ending represents perhaps the worst thing that
could happen to the narrator. The first clue to this can be seen in the description of how the
narrator grows the “tree”. On the growing of the tree, the text states “I watered it in fear… I
sunned it with smiles…with soft deceitful wiles”. It is made clear that the growing process is
incredibly emotionally taxing for the author and wholly unpleasant. Furthermore when the tree is
fully grown the fruit that it bears is not nourishing but rather poisonous and deadly. We can infer
the lethality of the apple from this line in the poem “In the morning glad I see; My foe
outstretched beneath the tree”. This demonstrates that the result of the author's anger was not
good but poisonous and lethal. In this way, one can see that the results of holding on to anger
are always negative for all involved.
Now some might say that anger is essential to