Book Review: How to Hold a Grudge
Nov. 4th, 2018 09:21 amI have mixed feelings about Sophie Hannah’s How to Hold a Grudge: From Resentment to Contentment - The Power of Grudges to Transform Your Life. Now on the one hand, I’m on board with her central message: there are times when “forgive and forget” is not the right answer, when it’s important to put a pin, so to speak, in a memory of someone else’s bad behavior so you know that, say, if you’re out for a group dinner and you’re paying on one check and everyone is supposed to put in their money on the honor system, Bob will always try freeload even though Bob makes more money than all the rest of you, what the hell, Bob.
And it’s good to be able to remember this without having to relive your fury every single time. This is the “how to” part of the title: Hannah suggests a method for robbing the grudge of its emotional anguish while holding onto the part that reminds you, “If you can’t avoid inviting Bob to a group dinner, split the check.”
I have noticed, in my own life, that allowing yourself to hold a grudge in itself is often enough to rob that grudge of its resentful grudginess. If you say, “Bob always does this, so I need to counteract him by doing thus-and-such,” you’ve got an action plan and therefore have no reason to lay awake seething with resentment because Bob always does this and you are powerless to stop him, whereas if you try to mentally bludgeon yourself into forgiving that tightwad because you believe holding grudges is mean, this one fault may poison your entire relationship with Bob.
On the other hand, I am not altogether convinced that it’s possible to reclaim the word grudge from connotations of hurt, anger, lengthy stewing sadness, contemplation of “Cask of Amontillado”-type vengeance, etc. simply because those are all so central to how many people (and by “many people” I of course am referring to myself) experience grudges in their raw form. I think that telling people “I’m learning how to cultivate my grudges” will lead to confusion and alarm, because they’re going to hear “I lie awake nights plotting revenge because Bob didn’t pay one red cent for that fucking filet mignon he ordered,” rather than “Bob’s behavior has been noted and cataloged and I will adjust future group dinner plans accordingly.”
I’m not sure what would be a good replacement word, though. I suppose you could just call this setting boundaries.
And it’s good to be able to remember this without having to relive your fury every single time. This is the “how to” part of the title: Hannah suggests a method for robbing the grudge of its emotional anguish while holding onto the part that reminds you, “If you can’t avoid inviting Bob to a group dinner, split the check.”
I have noticed, in my own life, that allowing yourself to hold a grudge in itself is often enough to rob that grudge of its resentful grudginess. If you say, “Bob always does this, so I need to counteract him by doing thus-and-such,” you’ve got an action plan and therefore have no reason to lay awake seething with resentment because Bob always does this and you are powerless to stop him, whereas if you try to mentally bludgeon yourself into forgiving that tightwad because you believe holding grudges is mean, this one fault may poison your entire relationship with Bob.
On the other hand, I am not altogether convinced that it’s possible to reclaim the word grudge from connotations of hurt, anger, lengthy stewing sadness, contemplation of “Cask of Amontillado”-type vengeance, etc. simply because those are all so central to how many people (and by “many people” I of course am referring to myself) experience grudges in their raw form. I think that telling people “I’m learning how to cultivate my grudges” will lead to confusion and alarm, because they’re going to hear “I lie awake nights plotting revenge because Bob didn’t pay one red cent for that fucking filet mignon he ordered,” rather than “Bob’s behavior has been noted and cataloged and I will adjust future group dinner plans accordingly.”
I’m not sure what would be a good replacement word, though. I suppose you could just call this setting boundaries.