With Purpose Success, part 51

1. Examine how you feel about what happened, and understand exactly why it's not OK. Explain these feelings to someone close to you. A trusted sounding board will let you confirm your view or possibly reveal flaws in your thinking that deserve further reflection. 

2. Make a commitment to forgive, and do so openly regardless of the response your act elicits. Forgiving is an act that will help you; it's not for anyone else's benefit. 

3. Empathize with the person who has offended you. Forgiving does not necessarily mean reconciling. But envisioning why a person acted a certain way helps you get past it. You are after peace of mind; not atonement or assignment of blame. 

4. Get the right perspective. Your ongoing pain is all about your hurt feelings-not about whatever first offended you weeks or months or years earlier. That's ancient history; let it go. 

5. Hold on to forgiveness. When you feel like taking it back distract yourself quickly with exercise or thinking of things that make you happy. 

6. Give up expecting things from other people that they don't want to give you. You can't control others. But you can work hard to provide hope, peace, love, and prosperity for yourself. 

7. Stop mentally replaying the events that hurt you; use your energy to find new ways to achieve your goals. 

8. Don't focus on your wounded feelings. That gives power to the person who caused you pain. Remember that a life well lived is always the best revenge. 

9. Remind yourself that forgiveness is a heroic choice. Commit to it publicly and stick with it. 

Be Open to Late Blooming 

Middlescence may be the ideal time for fresh starts and late blooming with new dreams and goals, of intellectual growth, new relationships, vitality, and contribution. The rocking chair can wait. It has for John 

Glenn, who went back into space at the age of seventy-seven. After twenty years of directing, Clint Eastwood in his seventies began making the best films of his career, including award winners like Letters from Iwo 

Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, and Million Dollar Baby. Some of our brightest lights got off to a rocky start. "Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little," read a casting director's notes after an early audition by Fred 

Astaire. Walt Disney was fired from an early job for not having any good ideas. Mark Twain and Alfred Hitchcock produced their best work past the age of forty. 

Late bloomers are everywhere, and among them are scores of ordinary people. We often presume energy and creativity to be the domain of youth. Yet that is not the case. In fact, creativity, a core trait found in many late bloomers, may be enhanced with age. That is the central finding in the groundbreaking work of economist David Galenson at the 

University of Chicago. In his studies of creative genius he determined that creativity comes in two basic forms-conceptual and experimental. 

The conceptual genius is like Orson Welles or Bill Gates. They come on the scene at a young age with a bold new idea and change history. Citizen