Self Over Spite

You can say this for truly selfish people: they aren’t spiteful.

If you are truly, 100% selfish – you truly make every decision and action centered around maximum benefit for yourself – then you can’t be spiteful. Because being spiteful never benefits you.

While I believe in helping your fellow humans in most spheres of life, there are definitely individual situations and scenarios where you should be maximizing your own returns. And sometimes, within those spheres, you encounter jerks! It’s natural to sometimes want those jerks to get their just deserts, but that’s foolish – even if there were zero percent chance of backlash against you (and that’s never the case), the simple act of whatever petty vengeance you want to visit costs you time, energy, focus. You spend juice to make someone else have a bad day, with no benefit to yourself.

“The best revenge is living well.” If your professor took points off for you being 30 seconds late to class because they’re a petty tyrant, what should you do about it? Get your grade and get out, that’s what. Whatever else you might want to do will inevitably hurt you in some way.

Whenever you feel the urge to be spiteful, just remember: be selfish, instead. Make your life better instead of anyone else’s worse. Maybe make someone else’s better, too.