Retaliation Leads to Escalation
Now, I’ll be honest here. Among my friends, I’m not actually
known for my tolerance or my ability to let things lie. Frankly,
if someone puts me down or winds me up, my first instinct is
to respond in kind. When I was (much) younger, this led to
the occasional fist fight. Even when I learned to stop picking
fights—or letting other people pick them with me—I still
couldn’t resist a smartass retort or a petty act of vengeance.
Well, it’s hard. If your neighbor cuts down a tree that’s techni-
cally yours, you feel aggrieved and want to cut down one of
his trees that overhangs your fence—even if you didn’t partic-
ularly like the original tree. Or perhaps a colleague at work
takes credit for an idea that you came up with. How tempting
to get her back by forgetting to mention until the last minute
that the deadline on her current project is being brought for-
ward, or drawing attention to the fact that last month’s
catastrophic exhibition was her idea.
However, think about it. (After many years even I learned to
think this one through, so I’m sure you can.) Anyone who is
prepared to cut down your tree or steal your idea isn’t about to
take your little act of revenge lying down. Nope. This person
is going to bulldoze your garage next, or try to get you fired.
Then what’ll you do? Blow up his car? Hire an employment
lawyer? Are you sure this isn’t getting out of hand?
Actually, this is one lesson I learned from my kids.* The thing
about siblings is that they’re so upfront with their squabbles
that you can watch the whole thing spiral out of control much
faster than in grown-up versions. We so-called adults plot and
*And I’ve been trying to teach it back to them ever since.