people say success is the best revenge. but is it really?
a few days ago i was clearing my old files and there was a folder called "f*** aiden." i opened the folder and it's just a bunch of screenshots when i had beef with aiden. i mean at that time, even in retrospect, it makes sense why i was mad since ppl with higher positions in his "startup" did less work than me (at least according to them). strangely tho, i don't even think of him anymore. i forgot this person's whole existence.
what is he doing rn? idk. the only things i heard about him is that he attended the yc startup school event and that he goes to umich (but there was a time that his insecurity about college app result got him to put upenn in his bio). he also never posted about his college app result on the admission page.
no matter what caused his misfortune, i dont really feel anything when talking about him. he didn't cause that much damage to me. and even when i remember spending a night arguing with him online (in front of 1000+ people in a public discord server) and was sweating about it (it was my first and still the latest public online debate), it didn't really damage that much. and at the end, we don't really hate each other (at least that's what he claimed). it is what it is.
so there's really no point of thinking about him simply because he is just not relevant anymore. and therefore the "success is the best revenge" mentality doesn't work here. if your success is to take revenge, it might be a good motivation to work hard, but when you've made it, if you still think about your opps in the past, did you really make it?
i haven't thought about aiden for years. and certainly not my enemies back in elementary school. would it disturb/concern me if they became billionaires as of today? yea probably, that's because they've made it further than you. and that means you are not there yet. you haven't reached their level. but for most of the people that i disliked, or the people who have disliked me, i don't really look back and remember the terrible things they have done because they are just not better than you. so why should i care? and to me, that is the definition of winning.
success isn't about revenge. it's winning to a point that you don't even think about or stur up any internal emotions when you think of someone who you originally wanted to take revenge upon.
there are still a few exceptions within the people in my age group that i feel inferior to, but that is probably a safe signal that i have made it pretty far, and that the few exceptions are the only ones that exist in my head as reminders that i haven't really won yet and the "battle" ensues.
in short, the best form of revenge isn't success. it's to forget. because if you've truly made it, you should be focusing on things that actually matter -- family, friends, what you're doing -- instead of past fueds.
im in the process of doing so.