Imagine this: Your sister starts dating someone you don’t like. Or there’s someone on your team at work who made your life harder.

It’s natural to retaliate: Put them down, get them removed, and surround yourself with people more like you. But this is a losing game.

Imagine everyone has a reputation bar - You start at 100%, and at 0%, you’re kicked out (of the relationship, or the job). You’re capable of bringing down other people’s reputation bars, but at the cost of your own - You might be able to get your sister to break up with her boyfriend, but your reputation will drop to 80%. You might be able to get your coworker fired, but your reputation will drop to 50%. Besides, it’s a lot of work.

Driving people out doesn’t scale.

Imagine this - Your sister’s ex-boyfriend ends up as a retailer, and you’re looking for a house. Your ex-coworker is now working at a better company, and is referring your other colleagues. You want to take advantage of these relationships, but you can’t.

For a moment, ignore all concepts of what’s “fair”- Whether this is about your ex wife or a boss who screwed you over. Think only about yourself. How do you maximize the best outcome for yourself?

By helping them.

Ignore how this helps them. It might eat you up inside at first. You’ll probably help them more than they help you, but it doesn’t matter; because this is an investment that grows.

If that coworker you hated, but helped, helps you get a better job down the line, does it really matter if you helped 10 other coworkers you hate? If helping your ex-husband means your relationship was better, causing your kid to get into college, does it really matter if your help made him get another girlfriend too?

If there’s someone you don’t like, it’s highly likely you’re going to be around them for a while. Helping them makes them a better person - someone who you might even end up liking more. The effort to bring people down isn’t worth it. Spend that effort bringing people up; it only has to pay off once in a while.