I don’t get it. What’s the point in deciding to be grumpy and angry towards someone else for something they may or may not have done in the past?
It doesn’t feel good to be angry and butthurt. It’s not a nice feeling.
So why do people do it?
And why do some people even actively decide to act grumpy and make comments towards the object of their anger for a long time after the initial hurt has subsided?
Am I missing some key element of “how to human” again?
I just don’t see what good it does anybody.
Unfinished business. A form of warning oneself of a potential future threat. But as I get older I care less about offences unless they are very serious or very trivial. I’m not even sure other people are real.
When people ■■■■ you over it’s hard not to get angry and stay that way.
It’s also especially hard if the person you’re holding a grudge against hasn’t made any efforts to make things up and tries to pretend nothing ever happened.
A grudge for me is a “don’t pretend we’re friends when your knife is still in my back”
Like for example I’ve been falsely accused of things. And gods that pisses me off. And then these same people later pretend to be all sweet and innocent and it’s infuriating.
So yeah I ain’t about to pretend to like or care about someone who has ■■■■ on me like that, I just want to watch them burn.
I have a couple of grudges from the past, but I only turn them on when I actually meet those people. For example people who have physically attacked me for no reason and never said they were sorry. You can’t forgive something like that. Fortunatly it is extremely rare I meet those people, but when I do I put on my hostile act towards them. They won’t get a positive calorie out of me.
I just want to clarify that in my book, you don’t have to forgive someone or roll over and let them stomp on you in order to let go of a grudge.
A grudge, in my book, is an active desicion to be salty beyond a normal amount of “you hurt me so I don’t trust you”
I think that to refer to a grudge as an “active decision” is somewhat misleading. There might be good rational and ethical reasons for getting over a grudge, but grudges are not typically founded on a conscious moral choice, it’s far too instinctive for that. Grudges can hurt those holding them, but so can anxiety, yet both are rooted in evolutionary processes and can play a positive role in securing our survival or well-being.
I think it’s because the brain doesn’t want to experience that same hurt again so it stores it
for frequent recollection. There’s also wishing to have changed it while it was still possible.
