This week, I have been very tempted to use the internet and social media to enact revenge on someone who has wronged me. I’ve had the opportunity to do some very serious damage. I’m not trying to toot my horn and say “Look how I’m taking the high road.” Instead, I want to give caution to those of you finding yourselves in the same boat as me.
First I want to be clear. Some people have used social media quite effectively to get companies to listen when customer service has failed them. That’s not what I’m talking about. In those instances, social media empowered them for justice.
Revenge deceptively appeals to us as justice. But in actuality, revenge keeps us involved in the situation that wronged us - by our own choosing. The thing about revenge is that it almost always comes back to hurt the originally innocent person. And it almost always requires methods that make you sink as low as the person who has wronged you.
I watched the movie Crash for the first time this past weekend. There are many themes that run through the movie, and one of them is revenge. Sometimes revenge was taken on the wrong person. But one of the most powerful ideas was that the better alternative to revenge is GRACE.
I will let you in on a secret that Crash did not relay about grace - It takes a LONG time and it doesn’t change people the way you hope. I remember when I tried to have grace with an ex-boyfriend who wronged me pretty badly. I thought grace would change him. It didn’t. I became so obsessed with my victim-hood that I kept myself in a perpetual state of being hurt by the guy. What a waste of my life!
Grace requires patience and the right expectations of what it will get you. It also requires focus on moving forward from the situation. The longer you dwell on it and participate in activities that are a response to it, the longer you are hurt by it. Instead…
Take all that pent up energy and spend it on someone you like. Instead of spending a lot of time and energy smearing someone you don’t like, spend the effort on people you do. Stumble their pages, give them a Digg, and comment on their blog. Help grow the efforts of things you do like instead of the things and people you don’t.
Create a world that is better than the moment you have just experienced. Social media is often quick and impulsive, but it is also permanent. Sure, you can take a blog post, but you can’t erase the memory of those who read it.
We all have the decision on how we’re going to train our impulses and what things we’re going to make permanent in this world. Join with me in the attempt to make GRACE and not revenge a more permanent pillar in our world.
This thing has 3 Comments
Great post & I agree– revenge is a short-sighted solution that really causes more problems down the road.
I love your idea about over-exerting positivity to counter act the negative, but I definitely think it may be easier said than done!
Thanks,
Kelly
I agree. I fell into the revenge trap once and paid a terrible price for it. I had a good reason to be angry, but I should never posted that blog post. It only made matters worse and things got out of hand real quick. In hindsight, hit delete before you hit send.
I agree, spend time on the positive blogs and support them vs. getting into comment wars with people who are not going to change their blog post and who think they’re always right.
This should be duplicated across the net from your blog post:
“Take all that pent up energy and spend it on someone you like. Instead of spending a lot of time and energy smearing someone you don’t like, spend the effort on people you do. Stumble their pages, give them a Digg, and comment on their blog. Help grow the efforts of things you do like instead of the things and people you don’t.”