Law 36 of 48
Ignoring Things You Cannot Have Is the Best Revenge.
Focus your energy on what you can control rather than dwelling on what is beyond your reach. By ignoring unattainable objectives or desires, you demonstrate resilience and maintain your emotional well-being, which can be a powerful form of revenge against those who may have wronged you.
Independent commentary on a principle popularised in The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors or their publishers.
What it actually means
Attention is the one thing here you genuinely control, and spending it on a slight is what keeps the slight alive. This is not pretending you do not mind. It is refusing to let someone else decide what occupies your head, and declining to advertise how much you wanted the thing that moved away.
Where you would have seen it
You were left off an invitation and you check the group chat six times that evening, reading tone into every message. The people involved have not thought about it once. Your week takes the damage, not theirs.
Try it today
Name one thing you keep checking that you cannot change. Mute it for the rest of today and give the time to something you can.
Where this shows up
Law 36 tends to come up in these parts of life. Follow a path to read the other laws that belong with it:
Laws that go with it
If law 36 landed, these are the entries people usually read next — they cover overlapping ground: law 10, law 2, law 4.
Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky.
Moods are contagious, and so are habits of blame.
Friends & FamilyComposureLaw 2Never Put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies.
Friendship makes obligations invisible: nobody states the terms, so nobody can be held to them.
Friends & FamilyAt WorkLaw 4Always Say Less than Necessary.
People hear a pause as composure and fill it in your favour; they hear volume as need.
NegotiatingComposure