You could harm youself without knowing it

"It is never wise to seek or wish for another's misfortune. If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang."
- Charley Reese, American commentator

This is a brutally hard pill to swallow. First of all, it's hard because we learn from the society around us that vengeance is the way of life.

In church we hear about turning the other cheek. However, since we virtually never see anyone do that, we tend to ignore it even if we believe it is wise.

This quotation speaks not of doing something against another person, but simply of wishing misfortune on another. Can a wish be harmful? Can we will something to happen for which we are then responsible?

Not likely. The boomerang effect refers to the cancerous feelings of doubt, of guilt, of wishing something bad on someone when we wouldn't want anyone to wish the same thing back on us.

Simply thinking badly of someone harms us. Anything we think has absolutely no ill effects on the other person. That person goes scott-free. It's we who bear the grudge.

Grudges get heavier with time. They never, ever, do any good for anyone. They always, without exception, do more harm to the person who carries the grudge than to the other person.

While the person against whom the grudge is held is out playing golf, skipping stones or otherwise larking, the grudge holder fumes and foments his own unplanned destruction.

Holding grudges or wishing ill of others is masochism. No people on earth value masochism when it is not done for a religious benefit.

Think of it this way: If the person who did you wrong thinks nothing of you, why should you give that person more than a passing thought, let alone harm yourself by wishing him harm?

Learning to forget people who have harmed you is difficult, but it can be learned with practice. The key is self discipline.

In this case, self discipline is made easier because you know how much harm you can do to yourself by holding a grudge.

It might help too if you kept in mind that anything that impinges negatively on the brain impacts the immune system, usually by compromising it such that the body is more susceptable to disease attacks than normally. Holding a grudge could, literally, turn a precancerous condition you don't know about into a cancer that you find out about when the grudge-causer is well gone, for example.

If you must keep someone in mind, keep a winner in mind, not a loser. Be a winner and keep your own best interests and best health at heart. Flush the losers out of your life.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help you to live a long and healthy life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com