My Two-Cents: Vengeance Through Forgiveness
I wrote a couple weeks back about the comedic fun in vengeance. But in a more serious tone, I think there is some value in vengeance through forgiveness – and in tandem, seeing the good in people.
Sometimes, the best revenge isn’t a dish served cold, but rather a thoughtful and surprising dinner. Let me elaborate with a personal anecdote from which my theory was born.
There have been times in my life when I have been vengeful and done things out of spite. There have also been times that I have been on the receiving end of spite. Sometimes I have received spite with indifference, sometimes with anger, but almost never with the desire to change. How often have you been condemned and had the sudden desire to admit to your wrongs and fix them? Human nature says far and few between.
Once in 8th grade, I thought I was a smart-ass and filled out a makeup slip assignment for gym as a sarcastic joke. Basically, I wrote on the assignment, which told me to do a makeup workout, that it was stupid and no one actually does it so I wasn’t going to pretend I did. So defiant and posh of 8th-grade Kate. She was really ahead of her time. Not! I was a little shit who got home from school to angry parents who had revived an email from my teacher – consequently, they scolded me, disappointed in my actions. I was going to have to apologize to my teacher, which made me want to shit bricks. However, at this point I started to realize that being a pompous little 14-year-old asshole had consequences, and I had to own up to my actions. Which sucked. But what sticks with me to this day wasn’t the scolding I got from my parents or the walk to my teacher's office with my tail tucked between my legs, it was my teacher's response. After I apologized to my teacher, my eyes welling up with tears, the confrontation and remorse choking my throat, she looked me straight in the eye and told me she accepted my apology and didn’t think I was a bad kid. Which honestly made me feel a lot worse about the situation than if she would have reacted in a defiant way, shoving my stupid actions down my throat. She then continued on to give me advice, saying to take the whole situation as a lesson to growing up and dealing with people: your actions and projected demeanor have consequences to how people see you — do you want to be thought of as an insensitive, vain little shit, or do you want to do some good. Something that stuck with me for a while.
My immature action still bothered me for a while after this, but I think that was mostly because of how my teacher turned it on me — instead of taking a “vengeful approach”, she said she saw the good and me and somehow that made me feel even worse. But in a good way, because I learned! Sometimes you live and learn. But if you're not careful, you just live. I hadn’t thought about this ordeal for a while until it came up in my head as I was subbing the other day. Working with children, you realize that they are little assholes. But they are also the most impressionable they’ll ever be — and we’re all at that stage at some point or another. I’m really thankful that when I was a kid, my teacher responded to my remorse with forgiveness because it really made an impression on me. Probably more than I realized at the time. When people do us wrong and they offer remorse, in a paradoxical way, the most “vengeful” thing we can do is see the good in them. Holding on to spite is the much easier option, but it does us no good. Vengeance through spite lets us live, but vengeance through forgiveness allows us to learn.
Clearly, I’m not perfect – though sometimes I think I come pretty close. ;) But one thing I’m trying to work on is offering forgiveness – because seeing the good in others not only helps them, but it allows us to see the good in ourselves.
Kate
