Revenge Makes The Whole World Blind
Gandhi stated that “eye for eye makes the whole world blind.” As a guideline for non-violence, he said these words and hoped that his message would be ready to hear and understand enough pairs of ears. His warning of revenge is easy to understand but hard to put into practice.
People want revenge when they are deeply hurt. When someone you love and appreciate hurts you, it can leave a mental scar that burns with intense heat. It prays for the flame to go out, causing a wound in the attacker’s heart.
When you have a deep mental wound, you may feel the need to cause similar or even greater harm to the person who hurt you first.
Immediate satisfaction, lasting consequences
Revenge is a failed attempt to balance the scales because no matter how many adjustments you make, the scale will always remain unbalanced. The wounded person feels inferior, as if he were below the person who hurt him. Therefore, he tries to insult that person in order to reach the original equilibrium position or to become superior.
The first feeling you tend to get up when you take revenge on someone is satisfaction and the feeling that everything is in balance again. However, this feeling quickly disappears and leaves room for guilt as well as repentance. It can also feel like emptiness, just like finishing a big project if you have sacrificed a lot of time and effort for planning and revenge.
Even if you don’t even feel remorse after revenge, the scale is still not perfectly balanced. The consequences of revenge can last well into the future, where the desire to do harm disappears and is replaced by grief.
It is impossible to predict the future or know who you need next to you. Maybe the person you want to hurt today will become an important person in your life tomorrow. Remember that vengeful feelings disappear, but the damage you cause because of them can be deep and irreversible.
Never again
When someone opens the first page of revenge in a book and decides to continue, it’s hard not to escalate to the climax of the book. The intensity of each character tends to increase as the plot intensifies.
When a problem arises between two or more people, there are a few different ways to respond: run away, attack, or solve the problem. In the case of revenge, the decision is to attack. If both parties decide to use the same strategy, the conflicts will escalate until the other party decides that he has lost too much in the fight.
The world lacks compassion and there is too much pride
In a respectful culture where causing harm is not important but regaining respect, relationships will eventually burn people. Feeding revenge by attacking others only nourishes anger. Extinguishing the flame is only the first step in letting something new rise from the ashes.
Responding to pain with pain does not change the situation or make you feel better. In most cases, courage is not about being stronger than another, but putting yourself in their position and deciding that you don’t want anyone else to live that pain again.
