Ah, revenge...it is such an easily relatable topic that Hollywood even made a successful TV series with it as a title and its plot.

We’re all human, I’m sure there has to be at least one point in each of our lives where we were tempted to seek out revenge to those who had done us wrong.

Admittedly, in the past, I’ve also been guilty of it. Fortunately, for my own sake as well as everyone else’s, I never actually followed through with it.

There’s a quote by Nelson Mandela I encountered a while back that says “holding out on forgiveness (aka revenge) is like drinking a bottle of poison and wishing that the other person will die.”

It may sound ridiculous at first, but when you think about it, it’s also very true.

Basically, when you exert negative feelings for another person and focus on your energy on getting even, you’re actually  holding in and attracting more negative energy that’ll likely to harm you instead of the person you wanted to harm.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, karma works like a boomerang. It never fails to make sure that what goes around, comes around.

If you think that this is simply a ‘woo woo’ belief, you’d be interested to know that it’s basically Newton’s third law of motion that states “for every action, there’s an equal & opposite reaction.” 

Hence, it’s in our best interest to treat others as we would like to be treated. Be kind & as hard as it is, choose to forgive those who we think have done us wrong.

Rather than continuing to play the role of the victim, we can opt to forgive and be set free.

With each choice to forgive, we shift our perception from fear to love.

I must admit that this is was a little bit hard for me to swallow because when someone says or does something which hurts us, our logical reaction is to get even and inflict as much pain as they’ve caused us.

In my early 20’s, after reading Eckhart Tolle’s book entitled “A New Earth” (highly recommended reading btw), I have come to realized that this is largely in part due to our ego – our false self that we mistaken for our true self.

When our ego is bruised, it feels pain and automatically seeks to return the discomfort to whomever created it. The ego is synonymous with fear and produces judgment, attack, jealousy, and all the negativity that separates you from your loving truth.

Fortunately, once we become more aware that we are not our ego, it becomes easier to have the ego in check.

When someone says or does something that hurts me, for example, what has worked well is to take a deep breath (or three).

This simple action helps me to ‘quiet’ my ego down and calmly respond – rather than lash out.

What we need to also understand is that people who intentionally hurt others are usually those who are suffering from immense pain.

In essence, hurt people hurt people. In order to make themselves feel better, they feel the need to make others feel the pain too.

This is what the phrase “misery loves company” is referring to.

So, when we chose to not give in to the reaction that they would like to see in us (anger, sadness, etc), we let them know that we chose love over pain. To put it simply, instead of fighting fire with fire and create a bigger flame, choose water and put out the fire once and for all.

That said, if you still insist to seek out revenge, invest your time & effort on the best kind of revenge there is: Focus on improving yourself, be happy, and live your best life!

Read More: Dealing With Difficult People

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