Rancor

We explain what resentment is and what a resentful person is like. Also, tips for leaving it behind and famous phrases about resentment.

What is resentment?

Resentment, often also called resentment or resentment, It is a feeling of discomfort or displeasure that is experienced by a person, who is held responsible for some damage, illness or suffering from the past. It is considered, however, as a severe form of resentment, that is, as a deep emotion often linked to hatred and aggressiveness.

In principle, resentment is a form of emotional attachment to the past, since the resentful person does not forget past grievances and continues to take them into account for the present. For example, a person who was betrayed by a friend in a moment of weakness will hold a certain grudge against that friend, that is, he will no longer hold the same affection for him; But depending on how long it lasts, it can be said that he is a spiteful person, or not.

To some extent, resentment is among normal human emotions, since It plays a protective role by preventing us from suffering the same ailment twice. However, a particularly spiteful person is one who does not forgive even the most modest offenses, that is, who is capable of holding a grudge for matters that most would normally let go and forget. In this type of people, resentment can become an obsession with the past and one's own suffering which makes interactions in the present difficult.

Difference between grudge and resentment

The concepts of grudge and resentment are, fundamentally, the same. These are synonymous words, although it is also possible to distinguish them by nuances of intensity: Resentment is a deeper, more intense feeling, often the result of a resentment that has been held for a long time. If you look up “resentment” in the language dictionary, it is defined as “a great resentment.”

The relationship between resentment and resentment is reflected in the origin of the second term, which dates back to Latin rancor: a derivative of the verb rancescere (“rancid”) or rancidus (“rancio”), used metaphorically by the Latin poet Titus Lucretius (c. 99-55 BC) to refer to resentments that, after being stored for so long, end up acquiring a bad smell, like rancid food. Therefore, resentment is literally a stale feeling.

Characteristics of a spiteful person

A person is said to be spiteful when they hold grudges very easily, or over usually trivial matters, or when they hold grudges for a long time. These types of people are characterized by the following:

• It is difficult for them to forgive and forget and often relive painful situations as if they had happened recently.
• dedicate a lot of psychic and emotional energy to keeping the past alive and therefore to preserve painful emotions such as anger, pain or humiliation. That is, they tend to remember bad things more easily than good things.
• don't usually give in and they take confrontations to heart, which is why they tend to react angrily to situations that would normally be ephemeral and insignificant.
• tend to be proud, hypercritical, demanding and not very tolerant often because they feel that the world owes them something for their past experiences.

Tips to leave resentment behind

In situations in which the grudge takes on obsessive, persecutory overtones or begins to make the person's life miserable (for example, by sabotaging new relationships), the reasons that drive the grudge may need to be addressed. Some useful indications in this regard may be:

• Confront the past and let it go. This can be done personally, mystically or through psychotherapy: the idea is to find the wound that motivated the resentful behavior and weigh it in the light of the present, to give it the opportunity to heal and be forgotten.
• Put yourself in someone else's shoes. Sometimes, the only way to forgive those who hurt us is to put ourselves in their shoes, either by confronting them after time has passed, or through a deeper understanding of what happened. In any case, the idea is to reevaluate the painful incident in its proper measure and think about it in different ways.
• Positivize resentment. Many people find in resentment an important fuel to undertake changes, help others or join a charitable cause, thus giving a creative and mobilizing meaning to the pain, instead of reliving past pains.
• Communicate resentment. Talking about what happened, especially if it is with the person for whom you feel resentment, is usually one of the main routes to healing and forgetting. Sharing the burdens, giving voice to the pain and then following the path is one of the oldest healing circuits that exists in the world's cultures.

Phrases about resentment

Some famous phrases about resentment are the following:

• “Resentment, which is born of weakness, hurts no one but the weak person in question” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.
• “It is the ultimate test of pacifism that in a non-violent conflict there is no resentment, and that in the end enemies become friends” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian politician and jurist.
• “Resentment is an outpouring of feelings of inferiority” – José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), Spanish philosopher and writer.
• “If you are not dead yet, forgive me. Resentment is dense, it is mundane; leave it on the ground: it dies lightly” – Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French existentialist author.
• “Resentment is like taking poison and hoping it kills your enemies” – Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), South African politician and social activist.
• “To live happily you have to live without resentment” – Yasmina Khadra (1955-), Algerian writer.

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References

• “Resentment” on Wikipedia.
• “Etymology of Resentment” in the Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary.
• “Resentful people” at the European Institute of Positive Psychology.
• “Rancor” in The Britannica Dictionary.