When we feel like we’ve been wronged, our natural inclination is to react or retaliate immediately, but there are times when the best response is no response at all.
No matter the temporary sense of relief we might get from defending ourselves or lashing back, the aftermath of our words and actions long remains with us.
Rather than defaulting to what feels right in a fleeting moment, the more valuable question to ask is, “Will I feel good tomorrow, the day after, or whenever I reflect back on what I’m compelled to say or do right now, long after the heat of the current moment is extinguished?”
If the answer is yes, go for it. If no, it’s a good sign that what beckons is temptation rather than our authentic story.
I learned from my mother the powerful lesson of taking a punt some twenty odd years ago when a customer who frequented our family restaurant robbed her at knifepoint.
Many of our regulars knew the man, making it easy work for the police to identify and locate him. When we got the call that the thug was in custody, the feeling of relief was so palpable I could almost hear the jail cell door slam behind him, but Mom stopped it short. She declined to go to the police station to sign the incident report required to initiate prosecution.
WTF? How could she not want to throw the book at a man who violated her trust and threatened her life, all for a small sum of money? With the enviable calm of Mother Teresa , Mom simply said she was satisfied that justice would be done by a higher power.
Only a few months away from retiring, Mom had no desire to subject herself to a potentially lengthy, unpleasant prosecution process. She was grateful for a successful thirty-year run of the restaurant without experiencing a crime ever before, and it was more important for her to go out on a high note than to get even.
Dumbfounded, I tried to change her mind. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to waver, I shifted from seeking justice on her behalf to seeking understanding for myself.
I grew to see that ultimately it was she who deserved to be at peace with the outcome because she was the one who’d have to live with what, if anything, she chose to make of things. I was a bystander selfishly looking for a means to reconcile my inability to protect her from what happened.
Through her courage, Mom taught me that every decision carries both immediate and long-term impact. To make a choice based on one or the other is shortsighted and incomplete.
Her choice to trust justice to be meted by a higher power was based on love, a love that believes in the ultimate good in the world. My need for revenge was based on fear, a fear of unknown, unfounded harm that might come her way in the future.
The next time you find yourself tempted to react to someone or some situation, press pause and check in on whether the response is based on love or fear.
The answer will reveal the choice that serves your true authentic story.
