By: Stuart Knight (Founder and CEO) | January 29, 2025
Do you punish people?
Now, my guess is that most people hearing that question will automatically say "No way Hose!", which begs the obvious question of, “who exactly is this guy Hose”? Either way, it’s natural for a person to throw their hands up at the idea that they could be someone who could punish another individual. But hear me out for a second, so that we can unpack this a little.
As a starting point, we have to admit that we human beings have the capability of intentionally causing others pain. It’s not a fun thing to admit, but then again neither is me admitting that I like a lot of Justin Bieber’s songs. Which I didn’t just admit, but instead used that as an example. But yes, we do have the ability to intentionally cause other people pain.
You may be familiar with a study that was done in the 1960’s called the Milgram Experiment, where people were instructed to give subjects an electric shock each time they answered a question incorrectly. And the more questions they got wrong, the bigger the electric shock, to the point where the person receiving the shock was eventually screaming in agony. Now the good news is that the subjects were actors who weren’t actually being shocked, but the person being tested didn’t know that. Instead, they trusted the person in the room wearing the official white lab coat who looked like a doctor and was telling them to administer the shocks.
Crazy right? So what’s the point of the story? Well, besides the fact that actors in the 1960’s had really bad employment options, it only goes to show how capable we human beings are in being able to inflict punishment upon another person. And I get that this is an extreme example, and some may even say it’s shocking, but I think it’s important to consider some of our ugly bits as humans.
I see this with my children all of the time. And I’m not saying they are ugly. In fact, I think they are quite attractive. But they can act in kind of ugly ways sometimes. For example, let’s say child A does something to hurt Child B, which yes are the names we gave our children. It was almost one and two for a while there. So, when child A hurts the feelings of Child B, we pull Child A aside and explain the importance of apologizing for their actions, which they end up doing. And instead of accepting the apology, child B says, “Thanks, but you still can’t play with my toys!”
And it’s so frustrating when this happens because we don’t want them to grow up to become dicks who abuse their power over another person who has wronged them. BUT isn’t that something we are all capable of doing? PERSONALLY, I don’t like admitting it, but I know I’M capable of doing that. And aren’t we all? Someone hurts us, and our mind automatically starts thinking of all the ways to make them pay for what they made us feel. We start thinking, I’m gonna bring back the guillotine. Because we want them to feel what we felt.
But where does it get us? No where. All it does is keep us in a state of negativity. And that negativity courses through our veins and causes stress, and high blood pressure, and anxiety and depression, and disease and bad sleep and so on. Look, when someone hurts you, yes tell them that they hurt you. Explain how it hurt you, and what you need from them for the hurt to go away. From there, try your best to let it go. I know it’s not easy, and it’s something I still struggle with myself. I just think that the best thing we can do in those moments is to ask deeper questions like, “Will punishing this person really make things better for me?” “Will it lead me closer to the life I want?” Just asking that question will lead you to all the answers you need.
When we punish others, we’re just punishing ourselves. And you deserve better than that.
Much love,
Stuart
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