She had been told she had 11 months to live. That lit everything in a new light.

I didn’t have time for being short with people, she said.

This woman was telling her story on YouTube, and she’d lived past the 11 months the doctor had given her. But she retained her understanding that it was not worth holding on to resentment.

There is no time for that.

I once saw a book, a story of a man walking with a monk. The two approached a stream where a rich woman expensively dressed and dripping with jewelry was standing. She demanded that the monk carry her across the stream.

“You can get across this stream as easily as we can!” the man said to her.

But the monk knelt and let the woman climb on his back. He carried her across the stream, putting her down on the other side.

They continued on their way, and the man kept talking with outrage at this presumptuous woman the whole day.

When dusk fell, the monk turned to him “I put that woman down hours ago, but you’ve been carrying her this whole time.”

That’s resentment. That load of how much wrong has been done to my precious self is too much to carry. Or even in this case, a wrong done to someone else.

In the Big Book of alcoholics anonymous, one of the twelve steps is to take inventory of your life. Bill W calls out resentment as particularly devastating. It is a poison not to be indulged in. The alcoholic will use it to justify drinking.

I’m not an alcoholic, but I am weak in many many many areas. I can’t see straight if I let resentment have room.

And it crowds out the love I want to feel, and to give, to the people around me.

When that 11-months-to-live woman brought up resentment for the second time this week, I too saw how I don’t have time for this addictive poison. That monk was right. I can put down the burden even if I take it up.

Life is too short. This small stuff deserves just enough attention to get past it, and it is serious enough not to ignore. I want to focus on love and life.