😠 How to Get Revenge

A different approach to retaliation.

There will always be times when we know an action is wrong, but we’re tempted to go through with it anyway.

A common trigger for this temptation is when someone else has wronged us, especially if their actions directly impact our lives.

In moments like these, the urge for revenge can feel irresistible. We tell ourselves that one bad act warrants another—that striking back will somehow restore justice or bring relief.

But revenge rarely solves the original problem.

More often, it leads to a cycle of retaliation, consuming our time, energy, and peace of mind. It distracts us from what truly matters. Worse still, it can bring about unintended emotional or even legal consequences. Whatever the result, one thing is certain: it’s unpredictable and dangerous.

Ancient philosophers have long warned us that revenge and wrongdoing are ultimately self-defeating.

“Any transgression is a transgression against oneself,” writes Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations (9.4). “A wrongdoer harms himself by making himself a worse person.”

Responding in kind to a perceived slight, then, is often an act of ego, not justice.

Ryan Holiday echoes this Stoic view in Ego is the Enemy:

Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them.

The best revenge, according to Marcus Aurelius (Meditations 6.6), is simply not to become like your enemy.

Diogenes of Sinope, the founder of Cynicism, put it similarly:

How shall I defend myself against my enemy? By proving myself good and honorable.

In this way, true strength lies in preserving one’s character—not in giving in to the impulse to retaliate. We maintain our dignity by treating others well, by choosing not to be dragged into petty squabbles, and by recognizing that those who act wrongly diminish themselves. They need no help from us to do that.

If you like practical reflections like this, you’ll love my Micro Morning Meditations—short Stoic routines delivered to your inbox each morning.

These meditations are designed to be short enough to complete in ten minutes, but focused enough to enable useful self-reflection.

Over time, they build into a practice—a way of turning philosophy from something you occasionally think about into something you actually live.

Closely related to this ideal is the Stoic principle of accepting the events that befall us.

Epictetus, another great Stoic, repeatedly emphasized the importance of rational acceptance of the cards Fate deals us. He taught that to resist what happens—what is outside our control—is to live in contradiction with Nature.

There’s little point in denying what cannot be changed. But Stoicism doesn’t advocate passive resignation. While we can’t control what happens, we can control our response. In these cases, Epictetus insists, we should be active, not passive.

In one of his discourses on contentment, he challenges a common, self-centred outlook:

My wish is for everything to turn out just as I want it to, no matter what it is.

To this, Epictetus replies with pointed clarity:

That’s insane! You’re out of your mind! Don’t you know that freedom is a fine and admirable thing? But for me to randomly want my every random whim to come to pass is not only not admirable, but probably the most shameful thing there is.

He draws a compelling comparison: when writing a name, or playing music, or performing any skilled task, we don’t act however we like. We follow a standard. Why then, he asks, would we treat the art of living—freedom itself—as if it should bend to every whim?

True education, he says, lies in learning to want things to happen as they do. This doesn’t mean passive acceptance of injustice or harm. It means recognizing the limits of our control and focusing our energy on how we respond to what happens, rather than what happens itself.

Freedom, then, is not getting everything we want, but wanting things to happen as they do and acting virtuously within those bounds.

Taken together, these teachings offer a powerful way to live. When someone wrongs us, we don’t degrade ourselves through revenge. When events don’t go our way, we don’t waste ourselves resisting reality. In both cases, we respond with integrity. We choose to rise above. We choose to act with intention and character.

And in doing so, we embody what Diogenes meant by being “good and honorable”: rising above the world’s pettiness instead of being reshaped by it.