Chapter 18 don't think about revenge

One night many years ago, I was traveling through Yellowstone National Park.A forest ranger on horseback told our excited group of tourists a lot about bears.He told us: There is a kind of grizzly bear that can knock down almost all animals in the west, except buffalo and another kind of black bear.But that night, I noticed a small animal—only one—the grizzly bear that not only let it run from the forest, but dined with it by the light.That's a skunk!The grizzly bear knew he could kill the skunk with a single swing of his giant paw, but he didn't.why?Because it has learned from experience that it doesn't pay for itself that way.

I also know this truth.When I was a child, I caught this 4-legged skunk on a farm in Missouri; when I was an adult, I also encountered several two-legged skunks like this one on the streets of New York. people with only one foot.I've learned from these unfortunate experiences that it's not wise to engage skunks of any kind. When we hate our enemies, we give them the strength to win.That force can affect our sleep, our appetite, our blood pressure, our health and our happiness.Our enemies would dance with joy if they knew how they worry us, annoy us, and fix us on revenge.The hatred in our hearts does not harm them at all, but it makes our lives hell.

Guess who said that? "If a selfish person wants to take advantage of you, you don't have to pay attention to him, let alone take revenge on him. When you want to get even with him, you hurt yourself far more than you hurt that guy..." This This paragraph sounds like it was said by an idealist, but it is not.This passage comes from a police station circular.Why does revenge hurt you?It can hurt you in so many ways.Revenge can even damage your health, according to a report in Life magazine. "The main characteristic of hypertensive patients is that they are prone to anger," said Life magazine. "When anger is not maintained, long-term hypertension and heart disease follow."

Now you should understand that when Jesus said "love your enemy", it was not just a moral teaching, but a medical science.When he says "forgive 70 seven times" he is teaching us how to avoid high blood pressure, heart disease, stomach ulcers and many other ailments.Recently, a friend of mine had a severe heart attack, and his doctor told him to stay in bed and not get angry no matter what happened.As a doctor, we all know that people with heart failure may die if they get angry. A few years ago, in Spokane, Washington, the owner of a restaurant died of anger.I have before me a letter from Spokane, Washington Police Chief Jerry Schwart.He said in the letter: "A few years ago, there was a 68-year-old William Trecomber who opened a small restaurant in Spokane. Because his cook insisted on drinking coffee from a saucer, he was mad at him. The diner owner was so annoyed that he grabbed a revolver and went after the cook, only to collapse and die of a heart attack — while he was still clutching the pistol. The coroner reported Said: "He had a heart attack because of anger."

When Jesus said, "Love your enemy," he was also telling us how to improve our appearance.I imagine you, as I do, know women whose cheeks are lined with resentment, disfigured and even frozen with remorse.No matter how they do beauty treatments to make their appearance more beautiful, they cannot fill her heart with tolerance, tenderness and love. Resentment can even ruin our enjoyment of food.The sage said, "It is better to eat vegetables with love than to eat beef with hatred." If our enemy knows that our hatred against him exhausts us, makes us nervous, damages our appearance, and makes us Won't they clap and cheer when we have a heart attack that may even shorten our lives?

If we cannot love our enemies, we must at least love ourselves.We cannot allow our enemies to control our happiness, our health, and our appearance.It's like what Shakespeare said: "Don't burn yourself in a fire because of your enemies." When Jesus said we should forgive our enemies "70 times 7 times," He was also teaching us how to do business.Let me give you an example. As I write this paragraph, I have before me a letter from George Rohner, who lives in Epsuna, Sweden.George Rohner worked as a lawyer in Vienna for many years, but he fled to Sweden during the Second World War, penniless and in desperate need of a job.Since he can speak and write several languages, he hopes to find a job as a secretary in an import and export company.But most of the companies wrote back and told him that they didn't need this kind of person because of the war now, but they would keep his name on file...However, one guy wrote back to George Rohner and said: "You Don't understand my business at all. You are stupid and stupid, I don't need anyone to write for me. Even if I did, I wouldn't ask you, because you can't even write Swedish well, your letters are full of typos .”

When George Rona read the letter, he was furious.The Swede's own letter was full of mistakes, but he wrote a letter saying that Rona didn't know Swedish. What did he mean?So George Rona wrote a letter too, trying to make the man lose his temper.But then he said to himself, "Slow down. How do I know if this person is right? I learned Swedish, but it's not my mother tongue, and maybe I've made a lot of mistakes that I don't know about. If If that's the case, then I'll have to study harder if I want to get a job. This man may have done me a favor, even though he didn't mean it. He doesn't mean that I No debt to him. So I should write him a letter to thank him."

So George Rona tore up the scathing letter he had just written, and wrote another, saying: "It is very kind of you to take the trouble of writing to me, especially if you don't I don't need a secretary who writes for you. I'm very sorry that I got your business wrong. I'm writing to you because I heard about you from someone else and they put you in Introduced to me because he said you were a leader in the field. I didn't know that I made some grammatical mistakes in my letter and I felt ashamed and sad. Now I'm going to work harder on Swedish and correct my mistakes, thank you for helping me on the road to improvement.”

Within a few days, George Rona received a letter from the man asking Rona to come to him.Rona went and got a job.From this, George Rohner discovered that "a gentle answer kills anger."Maybe we can't love our enemies like a saint, but for our own health and happiness, at least we should forgive them and forget them.It would be a smart move if we could do that.I once asked John Eisenhower, son of General Eisenhower, if his father had always harbored a grudge. "No," he replied, "my father never wasted a minute of him for someone he didn't like." There's an old saying, "He who doesn't get angry is a fool, and he who isn't angry is smart." That's exactly the strategy that former New York Governor William Gaynor insisted on.After being attacked and battered by a tabloid, he was shot by a madman and almost killed.He lay dying in hospital, but still said: "Every night I forgive everything and everyone."

Isn't this a bit too ideal?Is it too easy, too beautiful?If so, let us look at the theory of Schopenhauer, the great German philosopher and author of "Pessimism".He believed that life was a worthless adventure full of pain. When he walked through every moment of his life, his whole body seemed to radiate pain, but in the depths of his despair, Schopenhauer said: "If If possible, there should be no resentment against anyone." So what I want to say is, if you want to cultivate peace and happiness, please remember: we should never try to get revenge on our enemies, if we do, we will hurt ourselves deeply, don't waste time Thinking about people we don't like.