Virtue in a Grudge

It has been said that a person can forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.  I hold grudges. I am not afraid to admit it.  I am human. I hold grudges and that is okay.  I don’t think that holding a grudge is necessarily a bad thing.   I think that by holding on to a grudge it could be construed as holding on to your principals.

A grudge is a feeling of resentment harbored because of some real or fancied wrong

I hold a grudge against my brother. I hold a grudge because I cannot forget the way he made me feel.  I have refused to have anything to do with him for almost three years now and I don’t see this changing.  My brother, whom has always had a fiery personality, burned a bridge in spectacular style. He acted in a way of disgrace on a very important day for me involving my mother and two of my very dear friends as an unwilling audience. Then he refused to apologize. He placed blame on me and other members in the audience for his actions.  I had an option at this point. I could brush past the pain and harm that he had rendered under the carpet and pretend that everything was acceptable, or I could cut ties with him until he understood the impact that his actions caused and apologized to all parties involved.  By sweeping his actions under the carpet I would be condoning the action that I had found morally reprehensible, and it would eat away at my mental sanity and slowly blacken bits of my soul.  I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that knowing that sanity is not always my strong point. I decided that I would need to cut ties with him, hoping that by cutting said ties it would drive home the impact of his actions were not acceptable.

Spite is petty, and often sudden, resentment that manifests itself usually in trifling retaliations

Anytime you cut ties, it either goes with a whimper or a bang.  I don’t think that any one in my family has ever gone out with a whimper. I don’t think it is in our blood to do it that way. My brother did not take the tie cutting gracefully and for months afterwards would I would receive messages on my voicemail that were either trying to pretend everything was under rug swept or full of bile and venom that I was not agreeing with his point of view.  With every call, I felt that it justified my actions of no longer allowing him to be a participant in my life.  Eventually he proclaimed that he had apologized several times and that I was just being stubborn by not accepting that it was some one else’s fault.  In his apology he couldn’t even tell me what he was apologizing for, because he wanted me to agree with him that it wasn’t his fault over the actions that he had control over. 

Malice is the state of mind that delights in doing harm, or seeing harm done, to others, whether expressing itself in an attempt seriously to injure or merely in sardonic humor

I will not have anything to do with my brother, the person that shares part of my genetics and flesh and bone, until I get a complete apology and all those that were involved received a complete apology as to the actions that went on that day, not because I am being malicious and spiteful, but because I truly believe that an apology is deserved. If I were malicious and spiteful I would do a full disclosure as to the events that transpired that fateful day, but that would only at additional pain to those that were involved, and I have not disclosed sordid details about the events that transpired to any of the members of the family, or even broadcasted it among my inner circle of friends, because it could be viewed as malice and spite that I was trying to turn one family member against another. I feel it is one of those instances that the only opinions on the actions that had taken place belong to those that were actually there.  

I am not being malicious and spiteful by talking about this grudge. I am merely using this as an example as to why I feel that it is alright to have a grudge. It is alright to stand your ground, when your moral fibers have been vexed by someone that is supposed to be close to you.  I feel that if I did not stand my ground for my values, then I would have lost a piece of myself and become less of a person of worth and fiber that I believe myself to be. I don’t’ want to be a disappointment to myself, and I don’t think that anybody ever wants that.  If you have analyzed why you are holding the grudge and the reasons have nothing to do with malice, envy or spite, but a solid ground upon the values and virtues that you hold, then it isn’t a grudge. It is a moral decision.  Only you can figure out where you want to compromise at, and only you can make that choice.Not every one is going to have the same values. I am sure that my brother would love it if I would just let it drop and we can go back to the relationship that we once had, but if I did that then I would never be able to trust him not to give a replay of the incident that had start this trip of melancholy, but I don’t want a repeat ever. I don’t want to be stuck in the same scenario, because he didn’t realize or understand the importance of his actions and own up to what he did the first time.  I don't want him to think that a general vague apology would always work to fix a specific action. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I hold this grudge that is trenched in my values and I sleep beautifully at night now.