Why Revenge Doesn’t Work

BY SOFO ARCHON

In life’s journey, we are bound to be hurt by others. Often, we recover quickly from heartache and move on. Yet sometimes we linger in the past, convinced that the only way to ease our pain is to hurt those who have hurt us. But does revenge ever work?

The short answer is no. The longer answer? Keep reading…

Why Revenge Isn’t Sweet

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” ~Confucius

The belief that revenge is sweet is constantly reinforced by our culture. Consider, for example, countless popular films and novels that portray revenge as something satisfying and desirable.

A common theme in these stories is the battle between two characters: one “good” and one “evil.” The “evil” character wrongs the “good” character, and the latter’s mission becomes to exact revenge. Once revenge is achieved, the “good” character is celebrated as a brave hero who derives immense satisfaction from the act.

In reality, seeking revenge to feel better is not only futile but also counterproductive—that is, rather than making us happier, it only deepens our pain. Here are some of the most important reasons why:

• It raises our stress levels, undermining both our physical and mental health.
• It leads us to waste much of our time and energy trying to ruin another person’s life instead of improving our own.
• It makes us behave in ways we actually despise, resulting in feelings of regret, remorse, and guilt.
• It often causes those we take revenge on to retaliate against us, resulting in a vicious cycle of conflict.

When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves.

Why Revenge Can’t Restore Peace

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some people argue that they seek revenge not to feel happier, but to restore peace—believing that punishing others for their misdeeds will teach them a valuable lesson: never to repeat their actions. Yet revenge rarely achieves this, for punishment does not address the deeper reasons why someone caused harm.

So, why do people hurt others? Usually, it is because they themselves were so deeply physically or emotionally abused as children that they learned to lie, manipulate, or abuse others as a coping mechanism for dealing with the harsh reality they grew up in. In other words, their behavior is often a misguided attempt to protect themselves or assert control in a world where they once felt powerless.

It is common to hate those who mistreat us, believing that they are “evil” and placing all the blame for their actions on them. Consequently, we want to punish them for their misconduct. Yet in doing so, we inflict further suffering on them, which reinforces their view that the world is cruel and, in turn, that the best way to cope with it is to be cruel themselves. In other words, we encourage them to become precisely the opposite of what we seek to achieve—namely, peace.

The Power of Forgiveness

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

If revenge doesn’t work, then what does?

Forgiveness.

To truly recover from emotional hurt, we need to forgive. But what exactly does forgiveness mean?

In essence, forgiveness means letting go of grudges toward those who have caused us pain and compassionately releasing the desire to punish them. Thus, when we forgive, we free ourselves from resentment and rediscover a sense of inner peace. We also stop being fixated on the past and can finally move forward in life.

I can almost hear you asking, “How can I possibly forgive someone who has hurt me?”

Well, the first thing that needs to be understood is that forgiveness is not something we can simply choose to do. Rather, it is something that can happen to us once we come to a certain realization. More specifically, forgiveness takes place when we realize that all people—including ourselves—are imperfect, conditioned by their circumstances, and bound to err, including causing harm to others.

With this realization, we begin to see those who hurt us from an entirely different perspective. We recognize the unconscious suffering that motivates them and understand that they, too, may be victims of their own traumatic past. Gradually, a natural desire arises within us to forgive them, even if they have broken our hearts.

Note: Forgiveness refers to the person, not the act. To forgive does not mean condoning someone’s misdeeds. So I am not suggesting that, out of compassion, you return to people who continue to hurt you. Not at all. Maintain distance, defend yourself if necessary, and ensure they don’t mistreat you again.

I would like to end this article with a powerful short story that carries a beautiful lesson on compassion and forgiveness:

The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spat in his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit in someone’s face he should ask “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe him. But the Buddha was like neither, he was not angry, nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.

But Buddha’s disciples became angry, and they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much. We cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it, otherwise everybody will start doing things like this!”

Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?

“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”

The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to his disciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”

Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep anymore the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over, sweating and soaking the sheets. He had never come across such a man; the Buddha had shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.

The next morning he went back. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language. When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are too narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”

The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”

Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.

And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”

Source: Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other by Osho