Resisting the tendency toward revenge.

What is your goal in life? What should it be? These two questions should have the same answer. If they don't, you may want to re-evaluate your perception of the world around you. I have met many people who believe in revenge. After all, it is a natural human reaction. You hurt me, now I'm going to make you feel just as badly. We must resist this temptation. Why? Because no two people think alike. These differences can cause the actions of some people we come in contact with to hurt us. They may not even realize they are hurting us because of the variances in how we think and reason, but sooner or later someone will offend us. What should we do about it?

Have you ever heard the expression, "The best revenge is living well"? Living well is what our goal in life should be. We should always be trying to better ourselves, not just monetarily, but also through better relationships with others, getting better educated and developing our character. This argument is the most compelling against the act of revenge.

Each of us has a finite amount of energy and can only complete a certain amount of tasks in any given time frame. How often do we say there's not enough hours in the day? Because of this limitation we should put forth all our effort toward our goal of living well. Any effort used to make someone else's life miserable is effort taken away from our goal. In other words, when we hurt someone else we hurt ourselves. Its just not worth it.

Another reason against revenge is our lack of knowledge. Have you ever been angry with someone's actions only to find out later they acted correctly? I have, and in those instances I was very glad I took no action against them. We will never see the world exactly as it is. We only see it based on our own perceptions and experiences. We are not qualified to make judgments regarding other peoples actions. Just look at how much time is taken in a courtroom evaluating the facts of a case before a decision is made. And in a serious case, twelve people make the decision instead of one. And still they don't always get it right!

If its any consolation, there are other sayings and quotes out there such as, "What goes around comes around." , "What you sew so shall you reap." and "Give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves." Many believe the universe has a way of seeing that justice is done. Those of us who believe in God (of which I am one) believe God is just and all will be justly dealt with.

So keep up the good fight and use all your energy to make your own life a better one. Let the rest of the population take care of itself.

Learn more about this author, James Dreamer.
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