Big Sean's Go Higher (N2, N1)

Big Sean, the rapper who has spoken openly about therapy and meditation, wrote Go Higher around five practices he uses for purpose and inner peace. One of them reframes a thing most people treat as a favor to someone else, on a page of lines from the book: "We should use forgiveness as a tool for freedom." How readily you let go of anger and resentment rather than holding onto it is, in the Big Five, two facets.

Letting go of resentment is the Anger facet

That facet is Anger (N2), under Neuroticism, how easily you feel anger and how long you hold a grudge once you do. Big Sean's line is aimed at the high-N2 tendency to nurse resentment: he reframes forgiveness not as letting someone off the hook but as releasing yourself from the weight of carrying it. A high scorer flares more readily and holds onto slights, replaying them. A lower scorer cools faster and lets things go, less inclined to keep the grievance alive.

The reframe that gives the line its force is that forgiveness is self-interested in the best sense. The resentment you hold is a weight you carry, not one the other person feels, so letting it go is a tool for your own freedom rather than a gift to them, which pairs with the capacity to keep functioning after someone has wronged you. For a higher-N2 reader the usable move is to notice a grudge you are still carrying and ask what keeping it is actually costing you. The anger feels like it protects you. Big Sean's argument is that mostly it just holds you, and that forgiveness is how you put it down.

The inner peace on the other side is Anxiety

The freedom Big Sean is after also names Anxiety (N1), under Neuroticism, the background tension and worry that a held grudge keeps feeding. His book puts inner peace among its aims, and forgiveness is the tool because carrying resentment keeps the nervous system braced. A high-N1 person lives with that low hum of unease and feels the grudge as one more weight on it. A lower-N1 person settles more easily once a wrong is set down, and reaches the calm Big Sean describes with less effort.

Read both your N2 and your N1 to know how Go Higher lands. If your anger runs high, Big Sean frames forgiveness as something you do for your own freedom. If your anxiety runs high, the payoff is the quieter nervous system that letting go leaves behind. The grudge costs you twice, in heat and in unrest. Big Sean's practice is aimed at both.

Read the book: Go Higher: Five Practices for Purpose, Success, and Inner Peace by Big Sean.

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