Revenge or Grow
Entry question: What do you do when somebody hurts your feelings? What if they do it on purpose?
Prelude
This is a difficult topic for me to broach. Therefore, it is also a very important one. And yes, I don’t have any good solutions here. This is something I personally struggle with. If it’s not that way for you, come back tomorrow. I promise we’ll talk about writing or solving Hard problems or something.
The two buttons
Here’s the scenario: somebody wrongs you. They screw you in some way. They cheat you in some way. Or make fun of you in a harsh manner - they laugh at you, not with you. Or they hit you where they know it hurts.
You have two buttons in front of you: Revenge and Grow. Take Revenge. Or ignore the injury and Grow.
Which button do you press?
The basic idea is simple. Someone pushes your buttons. They make you feel low-status. Or they make fun of something you care deeply about. Or they are deliberately non-compliant - they purposefully refuse to do something you ask for even though you would have done the same without fuss. What do you do?
Agneepath?
What does social revenge look like? Are we talking about going out and causing some grievous harm to the other person? Nah. What do you think of doing when someone causes you social harm?
You may snub the other person. You may become non-compliant in return when they ask you for something they want. You may insult them and make them feel low-status in some way, if you have the skill. You screw them when you have the opportunity. Or, if you have the stomach, you hit them where you know it hurts them most. You make fun of something that they care deeply about.
Games humans play in the social world. In other words, it’s punishment time.
The tongue is mightier than the sword
What could possibly go wrong if you press the Revenge button? Sure, you get the joy of being vindicated. You feel the self-righteous satisfaction of punishing someone who has committed a moral crime. But what could go wrong?
Maybe your revenge attempt fails. Maybe it doesn’t hurt them because you’re not good at delivering snubs. Or maybe they realize that you’re trying to hurt them and that kinda deflates your whole plan cos their shields are up.
But you could argue that the way ahead is to learn how to deliver such social attacks better. The most popular members of any social network have fine-tuned the art of cutting a person to pieces. They can humiliate and ridicule anybody, on any topic, anywhere. It’s a prerequisite for becoming Queen Bee or Mr. Popular.
The ability to tear a person to shreds is indeed very handy when you want to keep your social status intact. So, is that the way forward? To mitigate any risks of backfiring, should you learn to dole out punishment better?
Consumed in fire
(Note: These symptoms may not be typical. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe others have a less visceral reaction.)
Let’s assume that you can punish people at will when they threaten your social status. What then? What effect is it having on you? Apart from giving you visceral pleasure, that is.
Could it be eating you from the inside? Could you become too immersed in the social games and forever be in the grasp of yet another joy-reward hurt-punishment cycle? Could you give so much importance to winning in your social life that you lose track of what you want to achieve in the other areas of your life?
We were built to survive and thrive in a social world. Much of the complexity of our brain is said to have evolved to handle the pressures of social life. In fact, it is a big deal for your mind when something goes wrong in the social world. That’s why shame and fear of ridicule can easily snuff out any brief flames of motivation you have for achieving something against the norm.
It’s safe to say that when you engage with strong social activities like revenge or punishment, they will consume your mind. It will be hard to think about anything else. Your mind is like MS Dhoni in the last five overs of a cricket match. This is what it lives for.
Try as you might to divert it, your mind will insist on obsessing about all the ways in which they have screwed you and how you can make them pay for it. Your mind will defend itself by saying that it is just about deterrence. Like, you know, hitting the baddies hard so that they know not to mess with you again.
The High Road
What is the alternative? Seriously, what else could you possibly do but avenge the hurt? They have (apparently) decreased the quality of your life significantly. Unless you hit them back, this is gonna happen again and again, and your quality of life (it feels) will go down with every blow.
How the hell can you think of doing anything but punish the guy who caused you so much pain? If you don’t retaliate in some way, would they not keep taking advantage of you like this? Won’t you just drown in the shower of hurts? But then, we saw that even if you seek to punish others socially, your peace of mind will still take a hit.
Could we choose to take the high road and just ignore it?
“But… but…”, you splutter.
Yes, I know. They’ll keep attacking, keep making you feel bad, keep making your life worse. <hyperbole>Yes, it’s not in human nature to notice when you’re destroying everything precious to a person by abusing the fact that you’re in a position of higher social status.</hyperbole>
People who have made fun of you in the past and abused you in every way possible are not magically going to change tomorrow and tell you that they shouldn’t have done all that.
Ain’t gonna happen. The best you can hope for, if you pluck up the courage open up to them, is - “Hey… we were just doing it for fun, man. Why you taking it so seriously?”
So, yeah, I’m well aware of that. And I still suggest letting it slide.
Create value
What do you do instead? Focus on generating value, tons of it. Enrich your life. Grow.
Focus on increasing your quality of life like a madman. Social life isn’t the only life you have, even though it is hard to keep that straight in your mind when it is consumed in social maneuvers.
“Yeah… all that sounds nice. What the f*ck do I get in return? If I keep giving and other people keep taking everything I give and still keep hurting me, what the hell am I left with?”
Let it be. Take the moral high road and walk through life with your head held high.
So, here’s a plan, for the next 1 year month week, I won’t press the Revenge button, no matter what.
Someone laughs at some perfectly reasonable and correct thing I say, I still ignore it and press Grow. Someone sneers at me for no reason other than to make themselves feel like they are superior to me, I still ignore it and press Grow. Someone enjoys it when I become pissed off about some deeply important issue, I still ignore it and press Grow. I clear my head of all that crap and go ahead to improve life in some meaningful, lasting way.
“But if people realize that you won’t retaliate, won’t they make fun of you even more?”
Doesn’t matter. If their hurt to me decreases my quality of life, thinking about punishing them decreases it even more. I want the overall quality of my life to increase.
I want to Grow. And for that, I need my precious mental abilities available at full power. I need to focus on the areas of my life that matter. I cannot afford to fritter away my peace of mind and finite powers of motivation on petty little social skirmishes. There’s a lot lot more at stake here.
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