Think back – all the way back. What’s the absolute worst thing you’ve ever done? Stole something? Cheated a friend – or on a spouse? Hurt someone? Killed someone through negligence – or worse, intent? Lied to someone who trusted you? Betrayed others? Backstabbed a friend? Spread lies about someone? Deliberately went out of your way to hurt someone physically or emotionally? What was it?

Don’t make excuses for yourself – look it in the eye. What was the worst thing you ever did – so far?

Now – is that one thing representative of the person you are? Would you think it fair if you were introduced to new people as ‘the person who did’ and they name that thing. This is Bob, the guy who stole his best friend’s wife. Meet Mary, she lied about another girl in school and that girl ended up having to leave the school. Let me introduce Fred, he’s a murderer – ran over a kid who ran into the street. Hey, meet Jane, she stole 100K from her employer.

Maybe you’re Tom, who told lies to the teacher and got his best friend in trouble. Or Steve, who punched a girl in the hallway just for fun. Marty, the class bully who stole lunch money every day. Tina, the girl who lied about a male teacher doing something illegal – and got him fired.

Or are you just Phil, he tells whoppers – can’t believe a word he says? Maybe you’re Ellen, she steals other women’s boyfriends – just to prove she can. Or are you Henry, who goes online and starts arguments on social media just to watch people get upset?

Truth is – we’ve all done something really bad to someone at some time. Most of us do our worst in our youth – we’re the ones that grow up. But even as grown ups, we don’t come in size perfect – we should expect ourselves to learn from our mistakes and to do better in the future. We have the right – so far as we do it ourselves – to expect the same from others. We do not have the right to expect perfection from others that we do not ourselves possess. And as we mature, we realize that we don’t want that right – because it would give others the right to expect the same from us.

We’re more than one thing – we’re more than our worst – and our best. We’re a combination of all our stuff – traits, actions, ideas, thoughts, deeds, intentions – all the stuff that goes through our heads and hearts and comes out of our mouths and in our actions.

The bully can grow up to be a nice guy. The thief can become honest. The liar can stop lying. The cheater – you get the idea. We are the sum of our stuff – not the one thing at our worst or our best.

Keigo Oyamada is a composer. Thirty years ago, judging from the interviews he gave, he was a jackass. Forty years ago, he was a bully – by his own admission. The media hasn’t bothered to tell us what his current friends think of him. They haven’t mentioned if his dog likes him – or if he has one. How he treats his wife, how much he donates to charity, whether or not he helps young composers – nothing about anything good he’s ever done. If he’s continued to be a jackass, we don’t know because all we know about him is that he had a job composing music for the Special Olympics this year and he was a bully forty years ago.

Let’s not pretend that time is an excuse – there’s no excuse for what he said he did. And there’s no good excuse for him bragging about it ten years later, either. But he’s not a kid anymore – and the people who had the RIGHT to bear a grudge aren’t the ones that are condemning him now.

I was one of the kids that got picked on – a lot. Between first and ninth grades, I don’t remember a day without being bullied. At the ripe old age of eight, I wanted to die. Yeah, it was that bad and I didn’t have any friends. So I have a perspective on bullying that most people don’t. It did a LOT of damage to my life.

And if you went to school with me and are thinking ‘does she mean me?’ or ‘Oh, I remember the time I’ – stop. Whatever happened forty years ago is over, done and FORGIVEN. I only bring it up because it gives me a perspective most people don’t have – and besides, I’m under no illusions that I was a perfect little kid. I wasn’t.

From the personal perspective, forgiveness is more for the forgiver than the forgiven – it’s dumb to let someone’s worst have rent free space in your head. But that’s a different discussion. What about society at large? Should we condemn every person that ever acts badly? That means condemning everyone – ourselves included. If you participate in this ‘cancellation’ of another person, you’re now also a bad guy. No one made you judge let alone jury and executioner. This is no way to run a society.

There are things we need to speak up about – and demand action on. But something that happened forty years ago between kids? What action would be just? Forcing someone out of a job? Seems kind of strange when that job serves the very community that he once victimized.

Mob justice is injustice. Mobs never have all the facts – half the time they just have rumors that outrage them. They haven’t taken the time and effort necessary to determine what really happened, why it happened, who was genuinely to blame and what, if anything, should be done about it. We pay our imperfect court system to do all that – and while it’s got its own share of human sized warts, the judicial system is a danged site fairer than the mob.

I have no idea if Mr. Oyamada truly regrets his childhood actions or not. I do know it’s way past the time where doing something about it actually does anything useful. Maybe he’s still a jackass and is just sorry he got caught – so what? Does that mean he shouldn’t be able to feed his family, assuming he has one? Will forcing him into poverty make him a better person? What exactly will the ire of the Internet do to improve anything in this specific case? Yep – nothing.

What if he already regretted what he did and was trying to be a better person? Is demonizing him going to help that process – or risk making him bitter and angry? Not only does this castigation not improve matters – it can make them a lot worse.

So, what was the worst thing you ever did? Do you deserve to lose your job because of it? Do you deserve to be harassed by people who don’t know you now – and didn’t know you then, either? Maybe it is something that you still need to make amends for – or deal with the consequences of – but maybe its something long in the past that you’ve tried hard to never repeat. Would you want the Internet to judge you?

I certainly wouldn’t.