Useless Resentment

A friend of mine who is now very successful and happy was once going through a terrible divorce and working at a crummy furniture store. While she was working at the crummy furniture store, a co-worker shared this nugget, "Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere." I'd like to revise this by switching out worrying for resentment. Something like...

"Resentment is like a bag of cement. It weighs you down and frustrates you but at least you build arm muscle." 

No, that's not quite right. Maybe...

"Resentment is like a suitcase full of clothes the wrong size. They may cover you but you're not going to look good wearing them." 

Okay, so, obviously it is much harder to come up with these pithy sayings than it is to read them (or find pictures illustrating them) online. What I'm trying to get at, however inarticulately, is that this evening I finally discovered resentment does absolutely no one any good. This seems like something I should have already known, that everyone should kind of know, but the truth is before tonight I only knew it logically, intellectually. It wasn't something that my whole being believed as true. 

What happened to bring about this wonderful discovery? The 4th Step. Yesterday I read, "Will I blame others for what I do on the ground that I am compelled to react to their wrongdoing?" And then more about taking an inventory of my faults. This is not fun. Mostly, it is not easy. Being objective and honest about your shortcomings can sometimes seem almost super-human. You have to step outside yourself to look at yourself and you are constantly getting in the way of your own view. 

But one thing I could quickly identify within myself was resentment. I don't easily let go of the hurt that comes into my life. I think I hold on to it in hopes of being able to demonstrate, somehow, how much pain someone has caused me. That's crazy. Basically, I keep pain around, to show pain, to cause pain, in order to protect myself from future pain. Yeah, that makes sense, keep pain to avoid pain. Right. And the icing on the cake of this ridiculous logic: the person who I want to pick up on this pain (mainly, my husband) never does! And if, by some off chance, the resentment I'm carrying around does really make an impact on another person, it causes an argument not reconciliation and understanding. 

These lines helped me realize something about resentment: 

"I must go on day after day trying to face myself as I am, and to correct whatever is keeping me from growing into the person I want to be." 

Suddenly, it hit me. Resentment is not only causing me turmoil and annoying (at best), enraging (at worst) others in my life, it is actually keeping me from growing. Now, that, that I can't put up with. I suppose I am a selfish person. Well, I am. But when I think of letting go of resentment (that I feel my husband caused) for my husband's benefit, I'm not so entirely motivated. I think he caused this resentment, he deserves it! That would make a teeny-weeny bit of sense if (big IF) he were the one suffering most from my resentment. The awful truth is I suffer the most from my own resentment. 

I feel like I should have really fully learned this lesson when I read The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time, but it's taken 15 years to sink in. The bright side in realizing that I suffer under resentment that I impose upon myself is that I am also the one who can liberate myself. I may have been captured and locked-up in my resentment in the past, but realizing now how truly futile and self-defeating this resentment is has loosened its hold on me. I am not there yet, but I can imagine a future where I've let go of a lot of the weight I've been carrying, still am carrying. This gives me hope. Seems like I just need to be sincere (with myself) and patient (with myself). After all, as Dumas explains in his novel: 

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words--"Wait and Hope.”