surviving past mistakes

i guess the thing about that article in mother earth news hit me in such a profound way because i have a friend named rotten milk. I know the article was about raw milk, but it was almost like she was saying "i just want to save people the pain that rotten milk has caused." in effect, its almost like, i want to save you the pain of what he did to me.

If we stood all our friends on trial and listed off all the things that they had done to other people in their entire lives would we still feel the same about them? Would we see what monsters they are?

For a long time i refused to see that i was a jerk. And man was i a jerk sometimes. I've really done some horrible things. Things that make myself grimace. So if i were to hold such harsh judgements on other people for things they have done (and probably aren't proud of), i would lose a lot of friends. In fact i'd probably have none.

Life is full of tough decisions, strange roads and sometimes leads you into dark places. You do things that you really wouldn't sometimes.

We can ask that question, "what would i do if i didn't have to worry about money", etc?  And then we still have to survive.