Due to a bad experience with my boss recently, I've learned the difference between what I consider to be annoyance and frustration, and what I consider to be true anger. Basically, I can deal with being annoyed or frustrated. Those are fleeting emotions, usually driven by immediate pressures which are resolved quickly and often on their own. Perhaps it's just an annoying quirk, or some kind of accident. Just something that isn't deliberate in nature. Unless it's something that's very persistent over a long period of time, I won't bother asking them to address it in some way. I'll just let it be, and accept it as a part of life's little inconveniences. For example, I live in a ground level apartment and my bedroom windows face the parking lot. I get ANNOYED when people sit there parked in a space after dark with their headlights on for 10 or 15 minutes, shining into my window when I'm trying to sleep like a thousand suns. However, I don't get ANGRY because I know these people aren't deliberately leaving their lights on to torment me, and I know it's partially my fault for being lazy and not hanging my blinds up.
However, I will become ANGRY if I believe the action was deliberate. And when I'm angry about something, I'm not willing to let it go after the original moment of frustration has ebbed. When I'm angry, I want them to address what they've done wrong. That doesn't necessarily mean apologize, but I do want them to know what they've done wrong and that I am not okay with it. For example, the bad experience with my boss had to do with him taking advantage of his position to get me to do something for his wife (who does work for another company closely affiliated with the company we work for) which if ANYBODY else in the company had requested for me to do it, he would have told me not because it's not my job. THAT I am not okay with. It wasn't illegal or anything like that, but it made me have to sacrifice about an hour and a half of work on my other projects to do this thing which if it had been ANYONE else, I would have told her, "Sorry, I'm not the person you need, find somebody else." And it's not the first time he's done something like that, either. He has no qualms with using his position to further personal projects or to help his wife with projects that he really shouldn't have anything to do with, and it annoys all of us below him because we know if we ever did the same it would put him in a righteous fury.
So basically, I'm pretty good at letting little things slide. I worked in retail for a long time and you rather have to learn to let things go or else you'll go crazy. However, I have a much more difficult time forgiving somebody who is DELIBERATELY doing things to make my life hell, or is holding me to standards they don't hold to themselves. Though I think I have the most trouble forgiving myself, and overcoming my own faults and fears.
