Something of Vengeance-Daily Meditation August 10, 2023

Today’s quotation:

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy:  its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.-Charlotte Brontë

Today’s Meditation:

Revenge tends either to be a heat-of-the-moment thing or something that a person plans for a long time.  In the heat of the moment, it seems somewhat understandable for someone to want to “get back” at another person who has hurt them somehow.  Revenge is the result of emotion, something that hasn’t been thought out–and when it’s done, one has to live with the consequences of purposely hurting another human being.  This can be especially difficult for someone who considers her- or himself to be a kind and compassionate person.  The action in the heat of the moment contradicts completely the kind of person they claim to be.

When one has time to plan revenge, one is purposely abandoning kindness and compassion and working actively to hurt someone else.  Perhaps that person has hurt them, and that’s why they want revenge.  If that’s the case, we must admit that another person’s actions have caused us to abandon our authentic selves and to lose our integrity–instead of acting how we know we should, we make a great effort to hurt someone.  Living with this type of revenge can be even more difficult because of the purposeful nature of what we’ve done.  We’ve had plenty of time to take the higher road, forgive, and move on, but we’ve chosen to hold on to our anger and harm someone else instead.

Bronte warns us of the aftertaste of revenge.  We may feel a self-righteous justification for what we’re doing, but how will we feel knowing that we’ve done what we’ve done, that another person’s actions have caused us to compromise our integrity and our virtue?  I know that the few times I’ve felt a need to take revenge on someone else, the moment might have felt somewhat satisfying. Still, immediately I was struck by the cognitive dissonance that must result when one performs an action that goes against his or her values.

Revenge brings me no satisfaction, and I suspect that very few people feel good about hurting another person, no matter what that person might have done.  I don’t want to compromise my happiness and satisfaction with life by doing something I know to be wrong, so I choose to ensure that I do not seek revenge, no matter the circumstances.

Questions to consider:

Why do so many of us feel that revenge is something that’s somehow “natural”?

What are some of the long-term effects of taking revenge?

What are some of the alternatives to revenge that are in sync with the life you wish to live?

For further thought:

Revenge. . . is like a rolling stone, which, when a person has been forced up a hill, will return upon him with greater violence and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.-Albert Schweitzer

If you missed our last Daily Meditation, it is here.