Refusing to resemble the injury
The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like [the wrong-doer].
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations · Book VI, §6
Translated by George Long. 1862. Square brackets appear in George Long’s translation; a line-break hyphen is joined.
Being treated badly can make imitation feel like justice. If someone is dishonest, cruel, or dismissive, answering in kind seems to restore balance. Marcus proposes a different measure: whether the response preserves the conduct we want to stand for. This does not require remaining available for mistreatment. Reporting wrongdoing, leaving a relationship, or enforcing a consequence may be entirely appropriate. The distinction concerns how those actions are taken. Another person's behavior need not become the standard for our own. We can resist an injury without borrowing its methods, even when doing so offers less immediate satisfaction than retaliation would.
A question for today
What boundary could you uphold without copying the behavior you dislike?
