"There is no such thing as forgiveness," Rust Cohle of "True Detective" once said. "People just have short memories."

I take a lot from Rust Cohle, including this quote about people having short memories.

As a corrollary, hyperthymesia is a condition that leads people to remember an abnormal amount of detail in their life experiences. According to psychologists Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh, two characteristics of hyperthymesia include spending an excessive amount of time thinking about the past and having an extraordinary ability to recall the past.

Hyperthymesia is a medical condition for a reason. While we think having long memories can help us excel on our exams, tests, and overall benefit us in our lives, remembering everything in normal detail isn't a very good or adaptive life mechanism.

I came to this recommendation after a comment from Erik Brown on one of my articles: he read a story about a woman who could remember everything, and it made her life a living hell. "She was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown," Erik said.

I can't write anymore. As there's the gift of time passing, there's also the gift of forgetting — forgetting what the pain feels like at the moment. I remember reading this story about a woman who had a perfect memory. She could remember everything as if it was yesterday. In hyperthymesia manner, the woman was able to remember every slight and harsh comment, and how she felt from it, in exact detail.

"At first when I heard of her ability, I thought of the amazing possibilities," Erik said. "Once, I saw her interviewed, I'd never want to live her life. I wouldn't even trade for a single day."

Erik brought up a really good point that forgetting is often a benefit rather than a con, a luxury rather than a drawback. Forgiveness is often something we endeavor towards, but take a long time to actually accept and feel. It is a lifetime process to forgive the grudges we hold.

Forgetting, however, is a common occurrence. To survive, we must be able to compartmentalize, put us into the moment, and have selective short memories. That isn't to say that we actually forget major life events and have very short memories -- I'm sure you can recall your most significant childhood memories and traumas as viscerally and clearly as I can.

But people have short memories in that although the memory will still be there, the emotions seem more distant than they did back then. Herbert Hoover, our President during the Great Depression, came under a lot of ostracism during the New Deal and shortly after his role during the Depression.

However, by the end of his life, Herbert Hoover was considered a hero. Even in the time he was villainized and in political purgatory, he helped commission the Hoover Institution at Stanford, helped avert mass starvation among World War II victims, and had himself named after the Hoover Dam. Hoover became an advisor to both Democratic and Republican Presidents well into the 1960s. Asked how he overcame the ostracism of his critics, Hoover said this:

"I outlived the bastards."

And we can take a lesson from Hoover to outlive our critics and enemies, but also know that people have short memories. We shouldn't take extreme setbacks or accomplishments too personally. Of course, we will all have those life experiences and moments that are so emotionally salient and visceral that they stick with us, like the death of a loved one.

But even the worst things don't stay with us when the time comes to focus, when we have a deadline coming up, or just navigating a lot of tasks that accompany daily life.

Outlive whatever hard moment you're having right now. It could be the relationship gone sour or the bad evaluation you had at work, because a year from now and even a month from now, whatever happened won't matter. I know I didn't do as well academically some semesters in college as I wanted, but, unless I check my undergraduate transcript, I don't even know what I got in those classes. My performance didn't matter now.

To some degree, no one is going to remember the mistake you made that you thought was going to ruin your life, unless they really look for it. So outlive and outlast your enemies, but have a short memory just for the sake of yourself. We have often heard the phrase that we have to pick and choose our battles, and as I get older, the more I accept that adage.

You can't keep every grudge. You can't hang onto and lament every mistake you made. You have to press forward with a short memory because that's how you simply survive.

A 2007 research study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,found that people have the best memory for words and information they deemed necessary for survival. That means that, at the core, everyone is focusing most on what is necessary for them to survive, and focusing on those necessities.

The truth is we might not remember 95% of what happens today in the near future. And instead of lamenting that time is passing too fast, maybe the fact that we have short memories isn't such a bad thing after all.