Back when I was boxing, my coach gave me some good advice: Fight as hard as you can in the ring, and then leave the fight there when it’s over. That same lesson was helpful to me as a young lawyer. In the same way that left over anger from a boxing match serves you no purpose, holding grudges left over from adversarial events in a court room does no one any good. Once the case is over and you’ve left the court room, you have to let it go.
The lesson is simple: Fight as hard as you can for your client at the proper time, but not let the fight over a case carry over to relationships elsewhere. Even if you can’t be friends with an adversary, the weight associated with a grudge only burdens the person carrying the grudge. Carrying a grudge only hurts you.
Leaving the fight in the ring, or in life, is definitely easier said than done. The residual negative emotion that exists after any kind of competition or dealings with another person can be hard to suppress. If we’re not careful, the “cancer” can actually grow and distort the way in which you view all or part of the world. Most grudges don’t send a person’s life into a downward spiral, but no grudge is healthy.
It is all about attitude. You have to accept what has happened, take whatever lessons are available from the experience and move on, acting accordingly. Allowing your emotions to control the way you act is not always going to get you where you want to go. It is often the allowing of something other than reason to control their actions that puts people on paths they never wanted to follow.
As I noted above, a deep friendship with a former adversary is not required. Respecting a former adversary as a human being and having an understanding of who that person is and the risks they pose is arguably sufficient. The anger that fuels a grudge only gunks up the engine of your life. I suggest that you treat those former adversaries the same way that I treat liver. I don’t like it, but I do not spend a bunch of time worrying about it. It is what it is.
Elections are emotional events. The closer you are tied to an election, or the more strongly you feel about an issue, the more emotional it can be. It is definitely hard to accept a loss. It is no easier to accept being slighted by the other side. The thing is, there is plenty to do after an election, whether you win or lose. Life goes on. Stewing on what happened in an election doesn’t move anyone forward.
Whether your side won or lost, there are things to be done to make this place you call home a better place. Working together is the best way to improve the world for all of us. The grudges hamper that process. Take a deep breath; the elections are over. Let’s get on with the business of building a better future. Besides, don’t we all have better things to do than waste our time being mad at each other? That’s especially true for those of us way up in the CHEAP SEATS!
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Bill James is a criminal defense attorney and co-founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, Ark. He may be reached at Bill@JamesFirm.com.