It’s worse than anger, because it’s anger that you’ve allowed to sit for awhile. It’s anger you’ve given a platform to, anger that’s fermented like kombucha, anger that’s been given time to reside within you and take hold.
Resentment is anger that we ultimately hold against our own selves. It forces us to be embarrassed at our own shortcomings in a totally unproductive and unfixable way.
Anger and hate are important emotions. They are the engines for us to change and do better. They can right an unjust situation, force us to see clearly.
Resentment is counterproductive, because that’s when anger and hate simmer quietly in the background because they consume the self.
It’s comfortable to hold onto resentment. If I’m angry at myself, I’m protected. Who could criticize more and deeper than you?
I’m still filled with resentment that I forgot the word Bucharest in a conversation in 2003. To anyone else that’s – nerdy as all hell. But at that time and in that moment I felt ashamed for…what exactly? A brain fart?
Everyone remembers something irrationally, but nobody remembers everything. In fact – nobody remembers much of anything. You could have shit your pants at a party in 2003 and nobody would remember it – and if everyone remembers it then hell, might as well laugh at it. Why hold resentment?
Or, well, you don’t hold it. It holds you. Comforts you from the realities of the world. Resentment is easy to hold onto because it’s hard to change. To cling to feeling wronged, to a place and time that no longer exists, to a moment of carelessness, a flaw of a second.
The cheapest therapy is to let go.
