Punch them in the face, and then eat ice cream

This strikes me as sage advice, and yet it is frowned upon — nay, shunned — by the world at large.

You are given two options instead:

You must smile and simper and bury the rage, until one day it bursts forth in a torrent of flames. More specifically, you call the flames forth when you burn down their house and laugh maniacally as the smoke plumes tousle your hair. It’ll happen. A person can only swallow down so much anger.

I like to call option two the Edmund Dantes option. Yes, you can be angry, but you must be smart about it. You must take that anger and funnel it like a good psychopath. Keep it at a low simmer for decades, until you have instituted the building blocks to destroy your nemesis. And then you — what a surprise — laugh maniacally in your new mansion (which used to be their house), with your beautiful new wife (once theirs) and drink their whiskey (formerly belonging to your nemesis) — while they are either dead, defeated or destroyed.

 

Yes, that sounds healthy. Whereas walking up to the person who wronged you, punching them in the face, and then getting on with your life (with ice cream) is such a bad idea. That would make you a bad person.