Building Healthy Relationships: An Eye For An Eye! OR Being the Bigger Person!

Throughout my years I have encountered many positive people in my life and I am grateful for them. However I have also encountered the not so great people. It is through them that I have also become a greater person.

I must admit that in the earlier years when I was belittled, put down, judged, victimized, and bullied, I would be told by people to ignore it and be the bigger person. I would tell them “What! That doesn’t make sense! How can I be the bigger better person when I allowed my rights to be violated!” and then I would take it out back to that person who was disrespectful to me in different passive ways. Sort of the whole eye for an eye ordeal. They were mean to me, so I would ignore them, I would not talk to them. I would be hostile or give an attitude, to make it known that if he/she was rude then I would be just as well and give it back to them just the same.

The meaning of the principle Eye for an Eye is that a person who has been injured by another person returns the offending action to the originator in compensation, or that an authority does so on behalf of the injured person.

Mathew 5:38, Exodus 21:24

After some time I realized nothing good came out of it and it was just a vicious cycle of hurt and whether it was me one time and then the other person the next, it was always never ending! I also became aware that taking out all blame, excuses, justification and looking at the behavior itself "An Eye For An Eye" as people would call it! I was being just like them! So I didn't want that anymore! I wanted to be me and not like them!

Then I realized the Golden Rule, Treat others on how you want to be treated. Also of course several books later on boundaries and emotional management and effective communication skills I realized that being the bigger better person was a concept I had misunderstood. Being the bigger better person was not ignoring or allowing your rights to be validated, but rather speaking up to your rights in a way that was respectful not only to you but also to others. It also meant that I couldn’t change people and that they can be who they want to be, that is fine I accept it. But that also means I don’t have to tolerate them. So now for me being the bigger person was when I was being bullying I would right then and there call out the behavior and make it known I didn’t like it and that was my opinion and needed to be respected and if it wasn’t then I would choose another place to be and not go back to a place that wasn’t respectful towards my beliefs and opinions.

Basically I would be around people who would treat me that way I would treat others and that means that if I didn’t like the person, which by the way I am human and there are people that have different values and opinions from which I don’t agree with! That just means that I respect them for who they are and therefore, I just say hi, and bye, and nice to meet you but they remain respected and outside of my close boundaries due to the difference of values and opinions. It’s hard to speak out and be assertive; I work with it as a daily basis. But I realized that I would actually be hurting myself more and others by being passive.

"Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. Mathew 7:12