Take the high road
This expression means to handle a situation in a kind and ethical way instead of retaliating and seeking revenge.
Here is a common situation where this expression is used:
Imagine your boss was in a bad mood one day and started yelling at you for no good reason and complaining about your work. You’d probably be upset by this and might want to retaliate by saying something negative to him. Let’s say that you discuss this with your friend and your friend says to you; “He’s just in a bad mood. Of course he shouldn’t have yelled at you, but if you get upset and yell back then you are just as bad as he is. You should take the high road and forget about it.”
Imagine your ex-girlfriend sees you and tells you that she never loved you and hated the whole time you were together. You could retaliate by saying something horrible to her, or you could take the high road by disregarding what she said or saying something like, “I’m sorry you feel that way”.
I know from experience it’s difficult to take the high road (I don’t always do it) but it’s certainly something we should all try to do.
Andy
Phrases and idioms
May 27th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Thanks again for the good explanation.
I really appreciate your posts and I’m learning a lot with them. As a Brazilian trying to learn some English your blog is being a useful tool towards my goals.
Keep up the good work
May 27th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Thank you for you excllent explaination, I really catch the exact meaning of the phrease.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I tottaly agree with you, It is quite hard to do, But is very good way to improve yourself!
Sometimes revenge can be a very bad dish!
Have a great week!
See you around, From Brazil
Beto
May 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
First of all, thanks a lot for ur useful experession.
I think that the joy of forgiving others is much more than that of taking revenge or retaliating.But as it is mentioned above in comments, it’s too difficult to behave yourself at that very moment and be calm and not retaliating,cuz you think that by taking revenge you feel much better and are satisfied of yourself and so on.But actually it’s not.
Besides, because we are human beings and make mistakes in our life, so we should suppose that it may happen to us one day and in a critical time,we do such a thing and the other person wants to retaliate.For sure most of us dont want the other person to take revenge and want him/her to forget about it.
I think by taking the high road, we teach the other person somehow and he will be ashamed of his behavior later on.
May 28th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for the another good one!
Recently I often thought that, as you grow older, things you need to give up in a way grow in numbers to get along with people around you. I almost started feeling depression actually.
But I guess your essay here coud be a great relief for me.
Yeah, I’d say “I’d take the high road” instead of thinking it’s a compromise.