Episode 39 - Revenge Is A Full-Time Job With No Pay

Blame feels satisfying for a moment, but it steals the very agency we’re desperate to reclaim. Today we dig into the everyday reflex to fault parents, partners, bosses, and even whole systems—and we trace how that habit quietly fuels despair, sleepless nights, and relationships stuck on repeat. We share a simple but profound reframe: see life as a stage where you’re the lead, not the victim, and treat every conflict as a scene that invites growth instead of a score that demands settling.

We walk through the two common traps: powerlessness in the face of authority and obsession with revenge against peers. Both keep the other person living rent-free in your mind while your peace, focus, and momentum drain away. Instead, we model a different path built on response over reaction: naming the trigger clearly, choosing a guiding principle, and acting with steady boundaries that don’t sacrifice dignity. Along the way, we explore how faith and integrity can shift outcomes—how calmer tone and consistent actions often turn adversaries into allies and open doors to unexpected solutions.

You’ll leave with language you can use at home, at work, and in your community to cool heated moments, protect your energy, and set a new pattern that your future self will thank you for. Ready to stop rehearsing old scenes and start directing a better ending? Press play, save this for later, and share it with someone who needs a lift. If this helped, subscribe, leave a quick review, and tell us: where will you choose a new response first?

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Blame And Suffering

Childhood Blame And Its Limits

Authority, Powerlessness, And Despair

Personal Enemies, Resentment, And Revenge

The “World As A Stage” Mindset

Regaining Agency Through Faith

Enemies Reconciled And Practical Hope

Closing Reflections And Listener Actions

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining today. We are into a very meaningful topic, a powerful topic that hits home for everybody, and that is how we blame others or circumstances, and we either come out despondent or full of hate and rage and all kinds of different negative emotions that weigh us down. We're about to learn how to get out of that. It's very important that we learn to get out of this. Because if we're stuck in this negative cycle of blaming and being a victim and constantly trying to find who's at fault for my downfall, then that will be a life of suffering. I can't begin to tell you how many people I know like this. It's a plague. It's literally an epidemic. If you think about all of the people that you know, you will find so many of them operate in the past or operate with a sense of blame and victimhood. My parents didn't raise me right. My parents did X, they didn't do Y, blaming their upbringing. That is a very common one. Blaming your childhood. Okay, I get it. That only works for so long, my friends. You can't take that to the grave with you. And if you do, then you've lost. It's a double whammy. You understand? It's one thing to be upset about it. It's one thing to acknowledge it and recognize that you were wronged. Okay, parents aren't perfect. They're human beings. They're going to make mistakes just like you and I. We're parents also. And we know that we're not perfect. The idea is that we build upon our parents' mistakes, but that doesn't absolve our parents of the mistakes that they made. Certainly their mistakes weren't intentional. It's what they knew. It's what they were given the tools that they had at the time. And a lot of these families, especially in the Jewish community, came from European backgrounds, Middle Eastern backgrounds, places where civilization was a little bit slower to progress in certain circumstances. And as a result of that, they weren't with the times. And so they didn't really understand. And they had it even worse than we got it. Point is, that idea of blaming your parents or some kind of outside variable will only take you so far. If you hang on to it for dear life, you will end up damaging all of your other relationships because you're bringing that negativity with you and you are explaining away your problems as though you are justified in being negative and miserable. Sorry, you don't get a pass because when you were five and ten and fifteen years old, your parents didn't treat you right. Your parents weren't role model parents. Sorry, okay, you had a rough life, but at some point you have to take back ownership. You have to take back control. You have to recognize that now the buck stops with you, especially if you're going to become a parent. Because now you have to make sure that you don't do the same thing and repeat the negative behavior. Do you know how many people do that very thing? They repeat the same negative behavior and sometimes even worse than what they received from their parents with their children, and it becomes a terrible, terrible cycle. For the life of me, I'll never understand that, but I can only say, thank God, that's not me. Now, what he says over here in the book can get pretty heavy. So strap in here, but it's real. This is the stuff that's going to allow you to change your life, my friends. Pay attention. What goes on in the mind and the heart of an individual who blames others? In situations where a person is powerless against elements more powerful than themselves, such as police, judges, tax authorities, bank managers, employers, what happens there? Their lack of immuna leads them to believe that they're helpless victims and are prone to frustration, despair, depression, and in extreme cases, even suicide, God forbid, because they think that the creator can't help them. They feel helpless. They feel a sense of despair. There's nothing that they can do because these people are higher on the food chain. They're higher on the totem pole. They are subservient to these individuals, so they feel like their hands are tied. I can't do anything to counter the negativity that's coming at me from these authorities. So what can I do? You feel a sense of despair, you feel a sense of hopelessness. And there is nothing worse, nothing worse for any human being in the world than to not have any hope. If, however, the tormenting party is simply another person, such as a spouse, a neighbor, a business partner, and the like, feelings of hate emerge, resentment becomes a key topic, and revenge occupies a victim's thoughts constantly, day and night, thinking, how do I switch this around so that I win? How do I take advantage of a situation to stick it to that individual? Because I have equal power. I can be just as conniving, I can be just as manipulative, I can be even worse. They think they're gonna get the upper hand on me. Let me show them who they've messed with, and then you know what happens, guys. I don't have to tell you. It snowballs and it gets out of control and it ends up with a lot of pain and devastation, which could be so easily avoided. These people can lose sleep for days, weeks, and months plotting their revenge. It occupies real estate in their head. You know that amazing saying that when you're upset with somebody, all you're doing is allowing them to live rent-free in your mind? It's so true. When you harbor all these negative feelings of resentment and hatred and all these different ideas like revenge, all you're doing is keeping this person in your mind, which is like an anchor weighing you down. You're trying to move forward, but you can't. You're trying to run, but you can't, because this anchor, every time you take another step, latches onto something else, clips something else, and stops you in your tracks. In other instances, they degrade themselves by flattering or groveling before their tormentor. You've seen this before. Or they can sink into an abyss of anger and cruelty, striking back at their tormentor and turning the tables around, becoming the aggressor instead of the victim, like I just said. You want to see bad? Let me show you bad. You want to see revenge? I'll show you how to do this. Step out of the way, or as they say, hold my beer. This certainly ignites the creator's wrath and only deepens that person's unpaid spiritual debts. The reason that he was sent, the anguish in the first place. You were sent this as a test, my friends. Remember in season one, I told you that there's an idea in Torah that the entire world was created just for us. Everything you see around you, industries, governments, communities around the world. I'm talking about if you live in Canada, everybody and everything that is functioning and operating right now in Australia was created just for me. That's a pretty heavy statement. Why do we need to think that way? Because we recognize that this is all a stage. It was all set up for us. And if you walk around thinking like this, then you'll behave this way. That the world is a stage and it's set up for our benefit. And we are the primary actor. We are the lead. We're the star in this play. And depending on the choices that we make, will determine the outcome of the play, of the show. But the point is that everybody else is an actor. Everybody else is here to be able to support my role. So when somebody comes at me, I now control the outcome of that. I understand that it's a test. I understand that it's not real. It's not real. This individual isn't coming at me because they hate me and they want the worst for me. It's because it was signed off by my creator and it was sent to me so that I can grow and I can respond to it in a proper way. And if I do that, then the show ends beautifully. It's a success. If I don't, God forbid, then the show ends in tragedy. That's the idea behind this concept of the whole world was created for me alone. I am the lead. And therefore I need to look at everybody and understand that they are in supporting roles for me. Not that I need to take advantage of them. If that's where your head goes to, then you're in the wrong space. Not that I need to take advantage that I'm the king, I'm the star, I'm the celebrity, I'm the guy getting paid the billions. Wrong. It's that I need to produce the best possible show that I could produce. And the only way to do that is to have a positive outcome, a beautiful, grand finale. And in order to do that, everybody in the audience needs to be satisfied. They need to be happy that everything worked out because in the end, those are the best films. How do you do that? By recognizing that you need to work with your co-stars. You need to understand that they're playing a role and that you need to respond to that role. Think about that for a little while. Chew on it, digest it, because it's an interesting way to view the world. It takes away the heat. It turns down the fire. It takes away the gravity of things that we think are so heavy and so meaningful and are gonna easily break us down if we don't respond in the right way. The bitterness and suffering of a person who blames others for his troubles is simply unbearable. He feels futile and hopeless, seeing no end in his torment. Since he feels that his tribulations come from other people and he has no control or influence over them, what can he do? There's nothing that he can do, but there is. There is one thing that he can do. His life is in his hands, not in the hands of others. He can turn to the master of the universe, who alone controls whatever is happening in his life. Any salvation and good in life comes from him. At the end of every day, my friends, remember this. You control no one. Your co-stars in this show of life, you can't control. You can't write their script. You don't know what they're going to do. Some other producer, writer, director has given them instruction. Your job is to respond to them. And so while you can't control them, you can and you should control you. You are the master of your own domain. You determine your response and the direction that you take. And if your response and direction is to fight, to fight fire with fire, to be able to get revenge, to teach people lessons, to get the upper hand, to come out more powerful, better, stronger all the time because you're bent on overcoming, on overpowering your challenges at all costs, then you've lost. But if you turn to your creator and say, I know what's going on, I understand what's happening over here. This is all for my good. These people are coming at me for me to improve, to change, to become better, stronger, just like my friend did last week. And as a result of that, as soon as you do, as soon as you become better, you take the high road, you take the Torah road, the godly road, then your enemies become your friends, just like King Solomon, the wisest of all men, said. What did he say? When God is pleased with a person's ways, even his enemies will reconcile with him. Guys, one plus one equals two. We've been talking about this all week. No coincidences, that that's exactly what comes up right now. Even your enemies will reconcile with you. At home, at work, at play, communities, neighbors, bosses, taxmen, lawyers, judges, all of them. You once see them as your enemy, and suddenly they reconcile with you. Suddenly a solution comes. Suddenly you have a settlement, and it's a good one, and it's in your favor. Only if you choose that road, my friends, may we all choose those roads. Have an amazing day. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening to the city.