Today, my XANDRO asked me a question that struck deeper than most: “When is the right time to forgive?”

Being the philosophy major that I am, I couldn’t just give a simple answer. I began, as always, with: “Let’s define ‘right’ and ‘forgiveness’ first.”

We talk about what’s right as if it’s obvious or as if doing the right thing always means doing the just thing. But is that really true? Sometimes, what we call right is just what the world expects of us; what rules, religion, or circumstance push us to do. So I asked him, “Is something right because it’s truly just, or because you feel forced to make it so?”

The same goes for forgiveness. We often speak of it as if it were a single act or something we can check off, like a task completed or a moral duty fulfilled. But forgiveness is not that simple. It isn’t a switch you can flip, nor a line you cross once and for all.

For me, forgiveness is a journey. It is uneven, uncertain, deeply personal. It moves at the pace of your healing, not at the demand of others. It is shaped by who you are, what you value, and how you make sense of pain. It depends on your capacity to hold hurt without letting it consume you, your willingness to see beyond what was done, and the meaning you assign to both the wound and the act of release.

For some, forgiveness happens quietly, gradually loosening its grip, almost unnoticed. For others, it unfolds in stages, through moments of realization scattered between anger, grief, and acceptance. But in every case, forgiveness is less about the one who hurt you and more about your own healing. It’s not about pretending the pain never happened, but about reaching a place where it no longer controls how you live or who you become.

So, when is the right time to forgive?

It differs for everyone. It depends on your principles, your thresholds, your wounds. It depends on the kind of relationship you had with the person who hurt you, because forgiveness weighs differently when love, trust, or shared history are involved. It depends on the gravity of the offense because some wounds are paper cuts; others leave scars that never fully fade.

And most of all, it depends on your willingness to let go not just of the memory of the hurt, but of the comfort of holding on to it. Because forgiveness is also a risk: the risk of being vulnerable again, of being hurt once more.

Maybe the right time comes when holding on begins to cost you your peace. Maybe it’s when you realize forgiveness isn’t really for the one who wronged you but for the one still carrying the weight: YOU.

Or perhaps, somewhere along the journey, you come to see there’s nothing left to forgive. You understand that people are people, they make mistakes, they project their pain, and sometimes their actions speak more of their own battles than of your worth. You stop carrying their flaws and guilt as your own, and instead, make peace with yourself. You accept that what they did was never truly about you but about the storms within them. And in that acceptance, you find a quieter, deeper kind of forgiveness.

When I looked at Xandro after saying all that, I saw in his eyes the same curiosity that once made me fall in love with philosophy.

Perhaps the truest answer is this:

FORGIVENESS DOESN’T HAPPEN WHEN TIME TELL YOU TO, BUT WHEN YOUR HEARR IS READY TO.

Later, he told me he had asked his Philosophy professor the same question during their discussion of The Apology of Socrates. Hearing that made me smile. I couldn’t help but think how my own professors would’ve delighted in that moment too.

I just hope, somewhere out there, my Philosophy professors would be proud of me after reading this. 🤣

Love,

ANA 💋