Bearing Grudges: is not always bad, or is it not?!

When Sheikh Khalfan Al Aisari was asked to give his opinion about bearing grudges, he answered by narrating a story. The story was about a schoolteacher who asked her little students to think of how many people they bear grudges against. The students came with different numbers in their heads. Then the teacher asked them to go out and collect stones as big as their fists and as many as the people they bear grudges against. So the little ones came in; some with one stone, some with two, others with three, and some even with more. The teacher asked them to put those stones in their bags and keep them there. They were excited at the beginning; bragging about how many they have in their bags and laughing at those who didn’t have as many as they did. Towards the end of the week, their attitude changed and they started to complain about the stones in their bags and how difficult it was to move because of them. At that moment, the teacher asked them to take them out, and she told that that was exactly what would happen in their real life when they go around bearing grudges against other people.

While I totally agree on this, I’m not sure, though, if it is always the case. There are exactly two areas that this view seems to fail to highlight about bearing grudges.

One is that bearing grudges, I assume, is not one absolute thing. For me, it is graded and has levels from zero to ... - I don’t know you tell me, one hundred, a thousand or a million maybe -?! On this continuum (that is, from zero to infinity of bearing grudges) lies different feelings such as unsatisfactoriness, annoyance, disliking, resentfulness, hatred, loathing, etc. To put it another way, not all the stones you put in your bag are the same size, some are tiny and others are huge. It all depends on why one decides to bear grudges against someone else.

Now since it is a continuum, then I could presume that it has another end which represents the opposites of what is on this one. So on the other end, there might be acceptance, liking, love, passion, etc; as far you can get from bearing grudges as far you can move on this other continuum.

The other point is that not all grudges are going to weigh you down. This happens when the grudge is set at the level of zero. That is, it is not really hatred or even a feeling of annoyance with someone. It is more like blocking that person by avoiding dealing with him or making any connections. This one has its own reasons too, but most probably, I would say, it is due to the fact that you have never dealt with this person or because a movement from either end of this continuum has been made into the zero level. Therefore, sometimes bearing grudges is something healthy. Yes I really believe in this. For example, if you constantly get annoyed by someone you respect, like or even love, instead of deciding to move that person to the other end and start hating him/her, you just block him and keep him distant, which is sometimes good for both of you, isn’t it? However, this is not to say that this is what happens always. Sometimes you can sort things out by talking the problem over, and as a result you may move further to a better point or at least stay where you are. Of course moving to the opposite end is still a possible result here.

I don’t want you to understand that I am encouraging bearing grudges here. All what I’m saying is that sometimes it is a healthy solution when conflicts occur between people. If I am promoting anything by this, it would be the zero level of bearing grudges, which is a temporary station you sometimes find yourself compelled to stop at. At least it could allow you time to think and decide what level you need to stop at with this person. It is only here where if you cannot love someone you don't hate him either.