I had the appalling experience of being part of a radio show some years back with another author who promoted something like “100 Ways to Get Revenge without Getting Caught.” At first, I thought this was a joke, but no. The talk show participant told the host and me that his favorite get-even schemes were putting nails under car tires, sending pornography to a family home in the name of the hated person, keying the car of the wrongdoer—even messing with the credit card rating of the “bad one.” Sick…sick…sick stuff and he was gladly touting his book of revenge wares. Did I tell him he was crazy as a loon as I felt like doing? No way! My shiny ocean blue car was parked outside in the lot…and I sure didn’t want it to get nailed or keyed.
REVENGE IS MINE…SAYETH ME
Naturally, as the program went on I became more and more flabbergasted and frustrated because the message in my anger management audio program “No Hard Feelings” was: “What goes around comes around, so you had better be careful of the sharp revenge boomerangs you send flying.” Now he jumped on my bandwagon but for all the wrong reasons. “Dr. O’Grady, you’re right…that’s my message. If someone does you wrong…if you turn the other cheek you show you’re weak and God isn’t going to make them pay…that’s up to you and me. Do you get what I’m talking about?” No, man, I don’t get you…you’re the guy who gets others back in the back.
DON’T GET MAD, JUST GET EVEN?
This sick-and-twisted radio talk show guest screwed his point home like a drill Sergeant: “You don’t even a score, you better a score. If someone messes with you, you have the moral obligation to rectify the situation and teach him a lesson. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t get mad—I just get even! If more people took a pound of flesh for a wrong deed done unto them…the world would be a much better place and people won’t mess with you.” What a hamhead! The host of the show played along rolling his eyes at me and gazed protectively out the window at his new sunrise orange car parked in the lot.
FORGIVENESS AND YOUR COMMUNICATOR TYPE
Back in 2000, I didn’t know about communicator types like I do now. Maybe I was just too worried about the Great World Computer Collapse that actually never happened, did it? Now I know that this hate-full man was a fast-talking Instigator-type (I-type) communicator. Sure, I-types keep score and like to win, but he might have just been making this all up to sell books and get on shows! On the other hand, Empathizer-type (E-types) communicators don’t hold grudges long enough when they should. E-types don’t really feel easy about getting mad easily. In fact, have you heard an E-type sheepishly say: “Are you mad at me?” And like Avis, E’s try harder-and-harder to get along with Wackos and Egos and Sickos … who sell the slime of sick anger…as their inner light burns dimmer and dimmer.
I’LL HIT YOU WITH A TWO-BY-FOUR RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES
I-types are far more comfortable being disliked because they consider others disapproval a part of doing business. Empathizers are too quick to forgive and forget wrongs done unto them to a fault. And E-types say “I’m sorry” way too much. That’s why I tease E-types that they’re too nice for their own good. I cajole my dear E-types that sometimes the genuine row to hoe is to be a mean, nasty, uncaring, crude and rude in the face of stupid hate and unreasonable demands. In fact, E-types feel guilty if they were to shout: “No, you SOB get off my foot now before I hit you with a two-by-four right between the eyes.”
TO FORGIVE OR NOT TO FORGIVE…THAT IS THE QUESTION
Is there a time NOT to forgive? You bet. Is there a time NOT to teach somebody a lesson…someone who has it coming to them in pitchforks? You can bet your halo on it. Barbed words make every human being bleed BUT…
1. Forgiving doesn’t help if it sets you up to be duped, used or tricked again
2. Forgiving helps if your mind is wrapped around the hurter’s car axle and you need to let go
3. Forgiving doesn’t help if hate is the loving emotion to feel
4. Forgiving helps when you don’t want someone else to lead you around with a ring through your nose
5. Forgiving doesn’t help if you need to get mad enough to be the leader of your own life
6. Forgiving helps if you want to truly let go of past hurts that haunt your present day
7. Forgiving doesn’t help when you let go of past hurts only to pick up new baggage when you hurt yourself all over again
8. Forgiving helps if you let go and let God pull off the grace work
9. Forgiving doesn’t help if you’re just trying a slick new way to keep being a control freak
10. Forgiving helps if you’ve judged another person as “misinformed…bad…immoral…permanently damaged goods…unsalvageable…inhuman”
IT’S HARD NOT TO LET HATE GET YOU DOWN
There’s so much hate going around…it’s hard not to let it get you down. When you don’t forgive, you don’t have to be nice to your tormentor or act positive when you feel negative. BUT why not sing your life tune in the face of senseless hate and revenge wars that wear everyone out? Forgiveness won’t help if you don’t paint a person red with haughty way-up-high condemnation. Try as you might, you can’t successfully burn the infidels and witches of the deepest fears and embarrassments of being human beings at the stake.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady agrees with the rock song, “Turn, Turn, Turn” because there is, indeed, a time and a purpose for everything, and that includes a time for-giving and a time to be for-receiving. He’s the founder of New Insights Communication and author of “Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along with Anyone.”