We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions

Chapter 17 tackles the topic of forgiveness. The authors begin by acknowledging the widespread confusion around what forgiveness actually means and how to practice it, moving beyond platitudes to offer concrete, actionable insights from multiple perspectives.

The chapter’s central argument emerges through Glennon Doyle’s personal narrative about infidelity in her first marriage. Initially, she attempted traditional approaches to forgiveness—therapy, date nights, and various exercises—while remaining internally enraged. The breakthrough came when she shifted her thoughts from “How could he do this to me?” to “How can I do this to me?” (388). This reframing illustrates the chapter’s core premise: Forgiveness is fundamentally about self-responsibility rather than absolving others. Doyle’s decision to divorce, which she describes as creating “protective boundaries,” demonstrates that forgiveness sometimes requires distance rather than reconciliation.

The chapter presents forgiveness as an “inside job” that doesn’t require the other person’s participation or agreement about what happened. Multiple contributors reinforce this: Glennon Doyle describes forgiveness as releasing the need to make others’ harmful behavior “make sense,” while comedian Cameron Esposito frames it as “putting something down” and moving forward rather than backward (391). This perspective challenges conventional wisdom that portrays forgiveness as primarily benefiting the wrongdoer.

The analysis reveals how contemporary self-help culture often oversimplifies forgiveness, treating it as a binary achievement rather than an ongoing process.