What is the best way to get revenge on someone who broke your heart?
1. Forget revenge, think forgiveness: Some smart guy got it right by advising that by seeking revenge you dig two graves, yours and theirs, the perfect lose-lose. You cannot exact revenge of any sort while six feet under turf or anger.
2. Living well is the best revenge, attributed to George Herbert (1593–1633), Welsh poet, orator, and priest. His aphorism is the perfect win for the person living well and the perfect lose for the other party. If a lover broke your heart, find another, better lover and flaunt him/her/it. If a person cheated you out of a few bucks, recover and live as if you don’t care by improving your lifestyle. Buy a new suit, car, tickets to the opera or sporting event, a case of fine wine, or whatever you want.
If a lover broke your heart, find another, better lover and flaunt him/her/it.
A story to prove the two points: A friend ‘borrowed’ a few bucks promising to pay it back in a week. I am still waiting four years later. We no longer get together for chat and wine. He lost, in perhaps the ultimate grave short of death, a convivial, wine-wacko friend who delights in serving the good stuff. I lost a mendacious leach, not a grave at all but a blessing. I feel just fine with the exchange. I soon recovered and hope he has too, but, honestly, don’t care.
Francis Bacon, one of my favorite English essayists and philosophers who lived from 1561 to 1626 and has often been touted as the real author of Shakespeare’s works, wrote that Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. In today’s shorthand, you, I, can’t afford revenge.
