I met one of my wife’s cousins in India soon after our wedding. His harsh comment on my beard offended me.
I was deeply hurt, but I held myself back. The year was 2012.
I never had another encounter with that man. We came to Australia. However, I decided to return the favour. I wanted to hurt him back. That never happened.
In 2021, I heard he was diagnosed with cancer due to excessive tobacco chewing. He died last month.
I felt like losing a game that was not even worth playing.
It wasn’t even a game in the first place. I always thought about vengeance whenever I recall what happened eight years ago. A few words that upset me fueled my revenge. I wasn’t mature enough to understand the bigger picture of life.
Hate starts with a tiny seed. Depending on how you nurture, it grows bigger and bigger over time. But it’s not worth it.
We think that beating someone with words is revenge until you realize that our life is brief. It’s so tiny and limited from the perspective of the universe. How can a few words we don’t like turn us into evil?
We hear words every day from people. Some inspire us. Some hurt us while other triggers our emotions – love, anger and fear. But they are still a bunch of words.
Why do we preserve poisonous words and turn them into grudges?
It’s beyond your control once the arrow is out of a bow. Words do the same thing. You don’t know where or how badly it will hit when they are out. But we do have control over how we listen to them.
The minimalist approach would be to keep both ears open.
Preserve positive words and ignore the negatives.
But do we need an approach?
Or we can think beyond words?
I feel like time travel to 2012 to meet the man who hurt me.
How would I take those offending words?
I would ignore it.
Or I would laugh it out.
Or I would build a friendship.
Perpahs, I would advise that man to stay away from nicotine. But that’s not possible.