no rat poison for me, please...

"Rat" photo by Gina Matchinsky at the Henry Doorley Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska

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January 20, 2014 question is:  "Are you holding a grudge?"

Not everything goes smoothly in our lives. There were times when other people caused us not just simple disappointments but too much pain or anguish - times when we were deliberately caused harm or humiliation, when we were instilled fear, made us lose our self-esteem and our dignity, manipulated us, misled us, and even verbally and physically abuse us. Sometimes the people who do these things are even the ones who swear to love us and protect us, too. And we are just human not to feel hurt and betrayed.

When we feel we've been taken advantage of too much and while we are still in the middle of suffering from those abuses, it is at that point when we feel like bearing a grudge on people especially if what they did to us caused us irreparable damage.

We often hear people talk about grudge. It is a kind of ill feeling directed to a person who caused us harm or pain. So how do we know when we are actually holding a grudge?

I think for a simple resentment to turn into a grudge, it should be deep-seated. A grudge is a really strong feeling of hatred that do not fade or die down with time. It is firmly established so much so that it is difficult to change or curtail the feeling.  Some people even have ill will to go with the resentment, too.

In my life I had experienced how it was to be hurt so much by someone whom I have trusted, somebody who should be the one protecting and supporting me, and perhaps even loving me.

Too many might have-beens like what would it have been like if I had been allowed to have a regular job? Or what would it have been like if my first son did not die inside the womb? And the feeling that his death was attributed to the painful words somebody said to me -- what would it have been like if those words were not said? Or what would it have been like not to be expected to be like somebody else's mother and to be genuinely loved for being you? Or what it would have been like if me and my children had a loving, secure and happy home and not the opposite?

So many things that I won't be able to bring back. There was a time when I can only feel bitterness and anger for all the unhappiness somebody caused me. Too much time and effort and tears wasted for somebody who is not even worth it.

Then one day, I woke up wanting to change my circumstance. As  Jocelyn Murray says “Sometimes it takes great suffering to pierce the soul and open it up to greatness." Not that I have done anything great yet but I was able to tap my most daring self to make something good for the remainder of my life and the people I love.

I stopped feeling bitter from then on. I now think in terms of taking charge of my life. I realized most things happen because at one point we permit it to happen. Like I should not have let somebody else dictate how I should live my life or how I should define myself.

 There is sense in what Harvey Fierstein said "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." And I did.

Of course there were things that are beyond our control and we can't do anything about it. No amount of worrying or holding grudge would ever change these. So the best thing to do is just accept things, learn from your mistakes and move on.

It is like how you drive a car to reach your destination. You look at the windshield more than the rear view mirror. You only look at the rear view mirror as a precaution. To move on, we need to look more at what is ahead of us and not much of what had already been behind us, but it pays to check it once in a while to not forget the learnings from it that we had.

So to answer the question if I am holding a grudge? No, I don't. Holding a grudge is like a rat poison you take in the hope that the rat itself would die. And more often than not, that varmint is a bad rat and will die long after everybody else did. So there is no sense in me stressing and holding grudge over somebody even more after all the sufferings that person had already incurred. But I don't intend to make the same mistakes again.