There's Not Enough Forgiveness In The World Today

Project You 2016 Global Survey on Forgiveness Results

Late last year Project You conducted a Global Survey on Forgiveness. Remarkably we received responses from 18 different nationalities, plus one respondent who identified herself as a "world citizen." 

As expected, there were noticeable differences in the responses received to our 12-question survey. However, there was one thing the vast majority (88%) agreed on — there simply is not enough forgiveness in the world today. 

This is an astonishing response. Equally astonishing is that 39% of the respondents to our survey said members of their own families are not forgiving at all, while another 16% said that their family members were not forgiving very often.  

With 55% of respondents indicating that there is little or no forgiveness within their own families, it is little wonder that people do not feel there is sufficient forgiveness in today's world. We fully agree with Marianne Williamson's comment that "The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." 

What makes forgiveness so difficult? 

Forgiveness requires the right mindset and attitude. It also requires an appropriate level of humility and the willingness to acknowledge the human values of the other person. And all this needs to be combined with strong personal willpower and fortitude based on deep-seated self-understanding. 

That's not an easy combination to find or generate on demand. 

Often our sense of pride, self-righteousness, and ego get in the way of forgiveness. In fact, these are often huge hurdles. In the Project You Global Survey on Forgiveness, 45% of respondents said their instinctive first reaction, if asked to forgive one person in their life right now, would be "no way." 

Another 6% expressed self-righteousness (I didn't do anything wrong, I'm in the right here), while almost 5% indicated an angry response in line with "why should I be the one to forgive?" 

Less than one-third (32%) responded to this question with the positive choice of "it's really something I should do." 

Responses to the Project You Global Survey on Forgiveness were received from 18 different nationalities: Argentinian, American, Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, English, French, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Malaysian, Pakistani, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Sicilian, Singaporean, and the one woman who identified herself as a World Citizen. 

The detailed survey results can be viewed and downloaded from the Project You website by clicking this link:  2016 Global Survey on Forgiveness Detailed Results