Member-only story
I Wanted Revenge — But I Walked Away
We’re wired to want to punish those who have done us wrong. Sometimes, though, we’re only hurting ourselves.
A while ago, I was wronged by someone.
I won’t go into the details here. Let’s just say that it hurt me financially, but I would be able to weather the situation.
After much internal grief and complaining to anyone who would listen, I finally took the next truly American step: I reached out to a lawyer.
The lawyer started out tentatively. “What are your plans? Do you want to sue?”
“I’m just trying to figure out my options right now,” I said with a calmness that I wouldn’t have managed a mere few weeks earlier.
The lawyer let out a breath. “Oh, okay, good. Some people want to sue no matter what. They want to do anything to get back at the other party, even if the facts aren’t on their side.”
A couple weeks ago, I started listening to developmental psychologist Paul Bloom’s book Just Babies. One of the sections that really stuck out to me what his discussion of revenge.
We are hardwired to want revenge, Bloom argues. This is likely an evolutionary characteristic that helped back in the tribal days that has carried into what we…
