Can you really forgive if you can't forget? But how do you forget? How do you forget about the betrayal that destroyed the friendship? How do you forget the lies that landed you in muck? How do you forget the hurt that made you lose 10kg?

Now, I think when we say 'forget', we have to exam what exactly 'forget' constitutes. Does 'forget' mean literally forgetting? To practice selective amnesia and actually erase from your memory that which requires forgiveness? Or are we saying 'forget', as in, to allow/make/condition a life-changing something become a matter that isn't worthwhile remembering? To ignore it. Or are we saying 'forget', as in, let so much time go by that even the biggest disappointment and the most life altering event seem too far away to matter?

Whoever came up with the saying of 'forgive and forget' should be more specific under what circumstances it can be applied to. Sure I'll forgive someone who spilt coffee on my shirt, and I'd probably forget it in a day or 2. I'll forgive someone who stepped on my foot in the club, and I might just forget about it 3 wines later. But to forgive and forget someone or something who broke your heart into more pieces than it can be broken might be quite the challenge.

Well, I guess if you're magnanimous enough, you could just forgive that person. Have no hard feelings whatsoever. So with forgiving do you forget as well? Is it like a domino effect?

Maybe that's why the saying is in the sequence 1) forgive, then 2) forget. It doesn't specify when exactly you're suppose to forget. You could forgive (if you're really that big-hearted), and the 'forget' chapter might only come a few chapters behind. Or at the very last one that inscribes the last days of your life.

So the next time some smart alec tries to debate you on how you can't forgive if you don't forget, highlight to them the sequence of the idiom and it's unspecified timeline. Lets see what else they'll have to say.