TL; DR
Revenge looks attractive at first. It promises to balance the scales and heal wounded pride. But growing up along the Sobat River between tribal clashes, cattle fights, and civil war, I saw something different. Revenge keeps sending new bills to families, communities, and nations long after the first injury. It multiplies funerals, widows, orphans, and bitterness.
Forgiveness looks expensive at first. It asks you to put down your right to strike back and to carry pain without passing it on. Yet over time, forgiveness always costs less. It saves lives, protects children, and leaves room for rebuilding. Peace is cheaper than war, just as laughter is cheaper than anger. The real question is not whether forgiveness is easy. The real question is whether we can afford the price of revenge.
Revenge Looks Cheap At The Start
Revenge always presents itself as a good bargain. Someone insults you, steals your cow, attacks your clan, or kills your relative, and a voice inside says, “You cannot just walk away. You must answer.” That voice does not talk about the interest you will pay later. It only talks about the sweet taste of payback.
As a boy in Nasir and the surrounding villages, I heard many such voices. During the early 1990s, when the conflict between Lou Nuer and Eastern Jikany Nuer burned through our area, people did not speak calmly about reconciliation. They spoke about “answering” what had been done. One raid demanded another. One death demanded more deaths.
Even as a young child, I felt the pull of that thinking. When you see your people running, hiding in swamps, losing cattle, and burying their dead, the idea of “forgiveness” can sound weak, almost foolish. Revenge sounds strong and honorable.
Years later, after another local conflict in Adong, a relative called me and said, “Why are you not coming to join us in this fight?” He wanted me to pick up the old script. My answer would show whether I had learned anything from the past. Before I could speak, he paused and then said, half joking and half serious, “No, do not come. Stay where you are. Fight the good fight with the pen.”
That small correction made more sense to me than any angry slogan. He had seen enough to know that revenge looks cheap on day one and ruins you over the years.
Revenge is like buying fake shoes at the market. They shine on the first day. On the third day, they start to break. On the tenth day, you are buying new shoes again. The hidden price appears later.
Revenge: The Debt That Never Ends
Revenge is a debt that keeps growing. You think that once you hit back, the story will end. In real life, it rarely works that way. One insult leads to another. One fight becomes a family feud. One feud becomes a tribal conflict. One tribal conflict becomes a national war.
I saw this pattern as a child along the Sobat. One year it was a raid over cattle. The next year it was a revenge attack for the raid. Then came revenge for the revenge. Soon, young boys like me grew up knowing death and displacement as normal. Nobody could even remember clearly what the first small offense was. The story had become too long and bloody.
The cow example in the article is not just a nice illustration. I have seen versions of that story in real life. People fight over one animal, and by the time revenge is done, many goats are dead, huts are burned, children are crying, and nobody remembers why the first quarrel started. That is how revenge works. Everybody loses, and the original “justice” disappears in the smoke.
Revenge is like borrowing money from a greedy moneylender. You pay once. You pay again. You pay with your sleep, your relationships, and your children’s future. The interest never stops.
Forgiveness: The Hard But Cheaper Road
Forgiveness, on the other hand, looks expensive at the beginning. It asks you to swallow your pride, to hold your anger without spilling it onto others, to stand before your own pain and say, “This stops with me.” That is not a cheap request.
My mother understood this. She used to say, “If you carry revenge in your pocket, you walk with a stone that grows heavier each step.” As a boy, I pictured a man with a rock in his pocket, walking from village to village, getting more tired, more bitter, more bent over by the weight. Forgiveness, she said, is when you drop the stone.
Later in life, I felt that stone in different ways. I experienced threats because of my writing and my public voice. Some of the messages I received were not friendly. They tried to intimidate, to silence, to shame. There were moments when part of me wanted to answer with equal force, to use words as weapons instead of tools.
Yet every time I imagined taking that path, I also imagined the cost. I would lose my peace. I would lose some of my soul. I would become what I was writing against. Forgiveness, in those moments, was not just about the other person. It was about the kind of man I wanted to remain.
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Forgiveness cancels a bad contract. It says, “I will not keep paying this bill of hatred every day.” You still remember what happened. You still call evil by its name. But you refuse to sign your life over to revenge.
Humor And The Lightness Of Letting Go
Forgiveness is not always heavy and sad. Sometimes it is surprisingly funny.
I remember a small domestic argument about food. In many African homes, the last piece of meat on the plate is not a small matter. People watch it as if it has its own passport. One day, after a shared meal, the final piece disappeared. Accusations started. “You took it.” “No, you took it.” The debate escalated. Voices rose. Faces tightened.
Later, we discovered the true thief: a cat that had quietly claimed the prize when nobody was looking. That discovery broke the tension. We laughed so hard that the earlier anger felt foolish. In that moment, forgiveness did not feel like a sacrifice. It felt like dropping a heavy coat in hot weather. You suddenly realize how unnecessary the weight was.
Humor does not replace serious work of forgiveness, especially in deep wounds like war or betrayal. But it can help the heart relax enough to see reality more clearly. Sometimes we hold grudges over misunderstandings or small mistakes that later look ridiculous. A shared laugh can turn a possible revenge story into a funny memory.
When people learn to laugh together, they are less likely to destroy each other. Laughter is cheaper than anger.
My Brother’s Absence And The Cost Of Blood
When my elder brother Biel died in the 1989 Nasir battle, the idea of revenge was not theoretical. It stood at our door. Death in war does not come alone. It brings questions, anger, and a deep temptation to repay blood with blood.
In the community, I saw pain turn into plans. People talked of how to answer what had been done, how to show strength, how to make the other side feel the same grief. The cycle grew longer. One grave seemed to call for more graves.
As a younger boy, I did not have a political analysis. I only knew that my brother was gone and that no amount of revenge could bring him back. What I saw instead was more funerals, more mothers crying, more children left without fathers and brothers.
Over time, I began to understand something painful. Revenge did not honor my brother. It multiplied his pain into other families. It continued the story that had already killed him.
The older I became, the more I felt that my way to honor him was not to take up weapons, but to take up words. To say, through my writing and teaching, “Let this be the last generation that buries sons for the same reasons.” I have not done this perfectly, but it has become part of my calling.
His absence taught me that revenge is an endless funeral. Forgiveness is the difficult decision to build something different on top of the grave.
Why Forgiveness Builds And Revenge Destroys
Revenge consumes resources. It burns time, money, relationships, and even your health. It can keep whole communities stuck in the same old fight while the rest of the world moves on.
You see this in families where people stop talking for years because of one old injury. Weddings become complicated. Funerals become tense. Children grow up learning more about who to hate than who to love. The original problem is long forgotten. The cost continues.
At the level of nations, revenge keeps countries in cycles of war. Budgets that could build schools and hospitals are used for bullets and uniforms. Generations grow up knowing how to fire guns, but not how to read. Land stays fertile, but people are too afraid to plant there.
Forgiveness does something different. It invests instead of consuming. In a marriage, forgiveness saves the relationship from dying over one serious mistake. In a community, forgiveness allows former enemies to become neighbors again. In a country, forgiveness opens the door for shared projects, common markets, and rebuilt roads.
A vengeful family grows poorer in every way, even if they win small victories. A forgiving family grows stronger, because they protect their unity. A vengeful nation stays in ruins, no matter how many times it wins on the battlefield. A forgiving nation can rebuild and move forward.
Forgiveness does not mean there is no justice or accountability. It means justice is pursued with a different heart, one that wants restoration more than endless punishment.
Choosing The Bill You Want To Pay
At the end of the day, the big question is not, “Is forgiveness easy?” It is clearly not. The big question is, “Can we afford the price of revenge?”
Every grudge you keep is a bill you will pay with your peace, your sleep, your relationships, and sometimes your children’s future. Every time you pass your pain on to the next person, you invite them to pass it further. The chain grows longer.
Forgiveness does not erase memory. It does not pretend that what happened was small. It simply refuses to let the past chain the future. It says, “This is where the pain stops. This is where we choose a different story.”
For me, as someone who has walked through war, hunger, loss, and threats, forgiveness is not an abstract word. It is survival. If I tried to carry every stone of revenge from my past, I would not be able to stand. Dropping those stones has not made me weak. It has made me free enough to write, think, love, and work for a better tomorrow.
We all pay for something. Either we keep paying the high price of revenge, or we accept the hard but cheaper cost of forgiveness. Only one of these choices leaves room for peace.
If you would like to know more about my path as a writer, including the struggles, lessons, and small signs of progress along the way, you can read the full story on my Wealthy Affiliate blog here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/johnmaluth/blog
Reflection Questions
- Can you remember a situation in your life or community where revenge ended up costing more than anyone expected? What was the hidden price?
- Think about a person or situation you have forgiven, even partially. How did that decision lighten your own “pocket of stones”?
- Why do you think communities and nations so often choose the expensive path of revenge instead of the cheaper path of peace, even when history shows the cost?
- Can you recall a time when humor helped you or others to relax, forgive, or see a conflict as smaller than it first appeared?
- If you see revenge as a debt, what specific “bill” of revenge could you cancel today to make tomorrow lighter for yourself and those around you?
FAQS
- Why do you say forgiveness costs less than revenge?
Forgiveness looks costly at first because it asks you to release your right to strike back. But revenge keeps charging you again and again through stress, broken relationships, and repeated conflict. Over time, forgiveness frees your mind and heart, while revenge keeps you in debt.
- Does forgiveness mean forgetting what happened or ignoring injustice?
No. Forgiveness does not erase memory or remove the need for justice. It means you choose not to repay evil with evil. You can still seek fair accountability and protection, but without a heart that wants endless payback.
- What if the person who hurt me is not sorry?
Forgiveness is first a decision you make for your own soul, not a reward you give to the offender. Even if they never apologise, you can choose not to let hatred rule your life. Reconciliation may not be possible in every case, but peace in your own heart still is.
- How can whole communities or nations forgive after war or massacre?
It is never easy, and it takes time. Often it requires truth telling, public acknowledgement of wrongs, and practical steps toward justice. Community leaders, faith leaders, and elders can help create spaces where pain is named and people are heard. Forgiveness at that level is a long journey, but it starts with courageous individuals who decide not to pass their pain forward.
- How can someone begin the process of forgiveness when the wound is still fresh?
They can start small and honest. Admit the pain to God, to yourself, and to a trusted person. Pray or reflect, “I do not feel ready to forgive, but I do not want revenge to own my life.” Writing down your feelings, talking with a counselor or elder, and choosing not to act on your anger in harmful ways are first steps toward forgiveness, even before your emotions catch up.
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