(Note: I’ve been living this idea since the start of the year and I had promised a friend I would write this idea out as best as I can as a way to respond to her New Year’s essay –you know, those long Facebook posts people write at the end/beginning of the year.)

The idea that “they would have if they could have” had actually been with me for quite some time before I phrased it in the way it is currently phrased. The very kernel of it popped up in my mind as I was grappling with the suspicion that I had ADHD and came fully fleshed out some time after my therapist gave his tentative diagnosis for the stuff I’m dealing with.

The idea is that we all have resentments against the people around us and in our lives. Part of that resentment comes from the idea that the people in our lives know what to do but just don’t do it. We, then, inevitably ask, “Why?” and then continue on supplying ourselves with all sorts of reasons which are usually ones that fuel our resentment even more.

I came face to face with my resentments, a whole ball of it, when I told my therapist, “People around me from the time I was young knew there was something off about me and didn’t help me figure out what it was so it could be dealt with. Clearly, now that I know I have ADHD, it seems they just didn’t care enough to help.”

My therapist said, “You have to remember that while you were suffering, they were also suffering and dealing with their own issues however they could. Maybe they didn’t know better and if they did, perhaps they just couldn’t do better — try as they may have — because they just didn’t have the ability at that time to do so.”

In short, they would have if they could have.

Resentment is pretty much the same way, if you could imagine, one blind person walking with another blind person and getting angry as well as becoming hateful towards the other blind person for not warning him about loose rocks on the path they were walking on.

I can’t say that I’ve let go of all my resentments. They’ve actually been like people living inside my head whom I talk with from time to time when I am not well or when I am upset about something. But the thing is, I talk to them less and less — especially these days when I find myself just focusing on the present.

Focusing on the present, the now. I guess that’s really the key to a lot of things.