Is forgiveness against our human nature? To answer our question, we need to ask a further question: What is the essence of our humanity? For the sake of simplicity, people consider two distinctly different views of humanity.

The first view involves dominance and power. In an early paper on the psychology of forgiveness, Droll (1984) made the interesting claim that humans’ essential nature is more aggressive than forgiving allows. Those who forgive are against their basic nature, much to their harm. In his opinion, forgivers are compromising their well-being as they offer mercy to others, who might then take advantage of them.

The second view involves the theme of cooperation, mutual respect, and even love as the basis of who we are as humans. Researchers find that to fully grow as human beings, we need both to receive love from and offer love to others. Without love, our connections with a wide range of individuals in our lives can fall apart. Even common sense strongly suggests that the will to power over others does not make for harmonious interactions. For example, how well has slavery worked as a mode of social harmony?

From this second viewpoint of who we are as humans, forgiveness plays a key role in the biological and psychological integrity of both individuals and communities because one of the outcomes of forgiveness, shown through scientific studies, is the decreasing of hate and the restoration of harmony. Forgiveness can break the cycle of anger. At least to the extent the people from whom you are estranged (不和的) accept your love and forgiveness and are prepared to make the required adjustments. Forgiveness can heal relationships and reconnect people.

As an important note, when we take a classical philosophical perspective, we see the distinction between potentiality and actuality. We are not necessarily born with the capacity to forgive, but instead with the potential to learn about it and to grow in our ability to forgive. The actuality of forgiving, in real situations, develops with practice.

How do we come to make sense of our daily lives? How can we gain a strong grasp of who we really are and how we fit in the world? And how can we naturally connect to important ones in our lives? “Life stories are one of the prime tools we have for understanding ourselves and the world around us.” says Robyn Fivush, a professor at Emory University.

Humans are natural storytellers. We use stories to understand our present, draw insights from our past, and anticipate the future. Thus, storytelling is basic to our lives. As a form of rich engagement between family members, family storytelling should be valued more. Sharing bedtime stories and talks after school, or walking through an event that left a young child crying—these are all opportunities for parents and children to become closer through warmth, understanding and support. Fivush and her colleagues have underscored the value of storytelling in parenting. The ways parents support children’s emotions and help them retell more vivid, richly detailed stories have lasting impacts on children’s cognitive(认知的)and emotional development.

Children and teenagers learn how to talk about their lives from family stories. An early example is learning how to present a detailed story with a beginning, a middle, and an end—to give it a clear structure. Further, they learn what is appropriate to talk about or avoid and what feelings are appropriate to share over dinner or out with others.

When growing up, we use our life stories to build complex and stable views of ourselves. Through stories about the traditions maintained over the years, we make connections between past successes and failures, our relationships, and the activities that hold meaning to us to develop our new identities. These identities reflect our roles as family members, community members, co-workers and so on, thus helping us have a more complete view of ourselves.

Having a lasting impact on ourselves and those around us, life stories are filled with meaning, insight, and value. By the way, what’s the story that stands out to you from a recent meal or chat?

When given the choice, about 85% of people say they would not want to know about some negative event far in the future. Yet recently millions around the globe have downloaded FaceApp, which allows users to see how they might age in real life.

Many had fun with joking that they love the FaceApp old filter. Beneath the humor is a serious subject: How do we learn to relate to our future selves? It’s important that we try to because it could help strengthen the long-term decisions that we make. However, we often fail to make sacrifices for the grayer versions of ourselves.

More than half of the respondents in a recent survey of 2,800 Americans said they rarely or never thought about what their lives might be like 30 years from now. This isn’t surprising, since most of us are firmly rooted in the present and thinking about the distant future can seem like a distant priority (优先). My ongoing research might also offer an explanation: We tend to think about our future selves as if they are someone different from who we are today. In an effort to narrow these empathy (共情) gaps, my research workmates and I have tried to humanize people’s future selves in the same way others have tried to humanize charity receivers. Given that a photograph of one hungry child can spark emotional reactions, and cause viewers to donate, we have presented participants with vivid images of their distant selves.

That seems helpful. In a recently completed project in Mexico, we found that exposure to future self-images led more people to contribute to their pensions. Despite this research, I’m skeptical that the app users will suddenly increase their pension contributions and care about their health. The silly app isn’t paired with an immediate opportunity to change any of these things.

The lesson from FaceApp shouldn’t be that we need to marry hi-tech visuals with savings for retirement. The lesson, then, lakes the form of a question: What more can be done to urge us to think about, care for who we will one day become?