5 Reasons Why Living Well Really Is The Best Revenge

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You’re probably familiar with the phrase, “Living well is the best revenge.”

When I hear this expression, I’m transported back to my childhood days. I hear my mother’s soft voice quoting this same advice to my older sister behind her closed bedroom door. My sister is crying, having just heard the most recent, scandalous rumor about her that was circulating yet again throughout our small-town high school.

Kids can be mean, and my siblings and I were not immune to the harsh, painful jabs that come with growing up. While my siblings and I had been taught to hold our heads high and to be bigger persons than those who persecuted us, we always wondered when our bullies would get their comeuppance, and just how long we would have to wait to exact our revenge by “living well.”

When you’re younger and hear that you must “live well” to have revenge, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. After all, how can you be expected to live well when others are making your life not well and, frankly, hellish in the first place?

Living well isn’t a form of retaliation that is delivered swiftly, which is why it’s hard to think of “living well” as a means of revenge.

Living well isn’t just the best revenge though, nor is it something that we should view merely as a means of delayed gratification.

Living well encompasses more than just being able to pay your bills, or making sure that you’re eating healthy, or seeing the doctor for regular check-ups.

To live well also means to live happily, which is indeed the greatest form of revenge that you could ever deliver to your past, present and future perpetrators.

Want to know why? Here are 5 reasons why living well and being happy is indeed the best revenge.

5 Reasons Why Living Well and Being Happy is the Best Revenge

1. To live well is to live in the present moment. When you’re living well, you’re choosing to live in the present moment. You’re not absorbed by the pain of past traumas, and you’re not focusing on who has hurt you in the past. You’ve healthfully and mindfully chosen to live your life well, and that means focusing on what’s most important to you, which may be your career, your family, your education, etc. You’re simply living (present tense) well.

2. Living well means you’re living for yourself. To live well means that you’re making the choice to live your life in the way you want to. You’re not living your life based on others’ expectations, nor are you making choices to please others rather than yourself. You choose your life and your happiness over others and what they want for you, and that in itself is the best form of revenge.

3. True happiness doesn’t need validation from anyone else.  When you’re truly happy, you don’t need validation from anyone else. You relinquish your need for approval from others for your choices and lifestyle, which ultimately frees you from the unnecessary weight of others’ expectations, including those who have hurt you in the past.

4. Living well and choosing happiness means living your best life possible. Many people live their entire lives burdened by the expectations of others. They let their lives become consumed by what others may think about their choices, or they let previous hurts and pain affect every choice they make, no matter how unrelated those decisions are. When you choose to live well though, you’re choosing to let go of these heavy, unnecessary burdens, and giving yourself a clear shot at a life that is both fulfilling and rewarding. You make the choice to be happy and to live well, which means you’re giving yourself the opportunity to live your best life possible.

5. Living well and being happy ultimately eradicates the need for revenge. The most rewarding outcome of living well and being happy is that it actually eliminates the need for revenge. Why? When you’re truly happy and living well, you’re no longer concerned with others who have hurt or wronged you. True happiness does not know envy, nor does it feel the need for retribution. When you feel pure happiness, you actually wish the same happiness for others, and you feel sympathy for the choices that they have made that have caused them to feel the need to hurt you (and most likely others). A soul soothing, almost cathartic outcome of living well, happiness negates revenge, and softens a once hardened heart.