Blind

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Mohandas Gandhi

People are so easily offended by others. How quickly we fight back whenever we feel the other person threatened us in some way, even if nothing is hurt except our pride. We will defend our rights to the end, even our right to have everything go the way we want and everyone do what we think they should. We wage wars because other people don't see God the way we do. Worse yet, we teach our children to continue our battles, so family feuds can keep going for generations.

We feel like anyone who hurts us should be hurt back. They should get a taste of their own medicine. Murderers should be murdered. But what does that really accomplish? Do two wrongs make a right? Because someone behaved badly towards me, what do I really accomplish by behaving badly towards him? I've just brought myself down to his level. To begin with, this isn't exactly going to help my self-respect. Do you ever feel good about yourself when you've just struck back at someone? You feel lousy, if only because you know deep down that you've shown you have no self-control.

An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind. Develop the self-control to avoid fighting back when someone has hurt you. This means you can't do anything with your pain but let it be nothing, and then the other person is forced to see that the only enemy he has is his own pain. It is much more constructive to forgive the other person for acting so irresponsibly than it is to act irresponsibly yourself by striking back at him. That way, at least one person will be able to see.

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