Revenge is Never Sweet

There were a number of horror films in the 80’s that centered around revenge like Prom Night, Carrie, Sleepaway Camp, The Burning, and Terror Train.

The premise being that a group of people, typically teenagers bully an innocent kid, and through their cruel pranks either physically or emotionally scar them for life, and the rest of the story is about how they exact their revenge. As one by one would be picked off, the killer would stand over them and reveal themselves, as they profusely apologized and pleaded for their lives.

For those kids who were picked on or bullied in real life, it felt cathartic.

Have you ever felt this way, the need to retaliate against someone because of what they said or did to you? Chances are, that has happened multiple times in the course of your life. For most of those times you have refrained. Those times you didn’t, you regretted it because it never turned out the way you expected, that long-awaited feeling of satisfaction from making them pay.

As an ethics professor I challenge my students all the time to be who they say they are. I will never know if it will be something that they will practice. Of course, that is assuming that they don’t, which is what I should never do – assume. What I do know is that I must practice what I teach, and this year, I have been tested.

I will not divulge what exactly has transpired this year, but I can tell you that there were a number of incidents where I have had to breathe, dig down deep, and remember all of my teachings.

In my private moments, I visualized the numerous ways in which I would verbally beat them down, and then I had to breathe again, let it go, step back and look at the big picture, and remember that what someone says about you or to you is about them, but how you react is about you, and, adversity always reveals your character.

So as the old saying goes, I sat on my hands, and let it all go, and presented the best of myself as I responded, or not.

After my last ethics class last Wednesday, I sat inside The Bun Shop with my dirty chai latte in hand, decompressing and trying to write this blog. There was too many emotions flowing through me to allow me to articulate what I wanted, so I had to walk away from it.

I sat there going through it all, the faces that had projectiled their venom on me, their misguided and uninformed opinions ensuing, as I sipped on my beverage and breathed.

Yes, I have developed a reputation for being gentle, kind, open, warm, and all that good stuff, but I am human as well, and my ego and temper simmered in my brain as I recalled a line…

I’m going to have a migraine tonight because I didn’t beat you.

That was the line of Detective Andy Sipowtiz in the popular TV series NYPD Blue that ran for 12 seasons from 1993 to 2005. That’s how I felt that night, as I rolodexed those stepped to me in gross disrespect, who I wanted to verbally pummel into submission, who I wanted with my tongue to tear to shreds, who I wanted to embarrass. As always, I had to be the professional, the adult, the mature one. I had to be the better person, and I was pissed off about it.

I knew I would not have gotten any satisfaction from retaliating. I have developed my fair share of empathy, so my actions would have haunted me. I had to come up with those hypothetical scenarios where I got my revenge as sort of an emotional release valve. Even then, those thoughts were unhealthy, so I had to cleanse myself of them as well.

I had to remember that by Christmas break all of this will be over, and I will never have to deal with any those actors ever again in life. These toxic memories will eventually will pass away, replaced by good ones.

In life, people are just going to get away with stuff, and there is nothing you can do about it. All you can do is move on, and live your best life.

What I described is the real, messy stuff of life. That is why the ancient wisdom is so applicable today, like the Persian adage, “This too shall pass.” All of this is only temporary. The most important thing is that we allow our cups to be empty in the Buddhist sense, so that we can learn what lessons we are supposed to learn, not just about the situation, not just about others, but about ourselves.

I felt proud that I did not retaliate during all those incidents, that I stayed true to my best self. I could walk away and scream, but I did not let my ego and my temper get the best of me. Moreover, I could not take back whatever damage I could cause. My good friend Ric Carter used to say, “You want to leave them with their dignity”, and I did.

But I see now there is a next level I need to achieve. I need to come to a place of self-control and self-mastery where I do not indulge in such retaliatory thoughts, for they tax the mind and spirit and waste precious time that I can devote to other things. I am too valuable to allow that to continue.

A few weeks ago, one of my students shared a recent incident where someone with whom she had a relationship did something terrible to her, and she wanted so badly to retaliate, but didn’t. I said to her congratulations, told her that her partner’s actions were about them, not her, and added that that they will achieve a new level of self-mastery when even as someone is giving them the devil, they can still see the God within them.

That was a teachable moment that I now must practice.