A coaching client told me when a troublemaking manager quit at work, people stood up and sang “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” Perfectly understandable and thrilling to learn about. The song is playful and deadly serious.

Yesterday I wrote about the quiet triumph of discovering that we get along very well without someone – that lightning bolt of recognizing our own wholeness when a relationship ends or we leave a job. But there’s another kind of ending that deserves celebration, and it’s far less quiet.

Sometimes the person who leaves is the deceiver we’ve been enduring. The manipulator poisoning every meeting. The controlling colleague whose departure finally lets an entire workplace or community exhale collectively.

This 1939 song ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,’ from The Wizard of Oz (composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg) captures something we’re often told we shouldn’t feel – pure, unrestrained joy when someone toxic finally exits our lives. The Munchkins don’t politely acknowledge the Wicked Witch’s departure. They dance in the streets celebrating their liberation. And honestly? Sometimes that’s exactly the appropriate response.

Sure it’s about disliking someone and personalities clashing as well as recognizing evil and refusing to pretend its departure is anything but a gift.

When the chronic liar finally resigns, when the office bully transfers, when the person undermining trust and sowing division finally leaves – there’s this moment of united relief so profound it feels like the sun coming out. Not because we’re cruel, but because we’ve been living under oppression, stress that we couldn’t fully name or escape.

These people are ego centric. They drain energy, destroy morale, and try to make everyone else smaller. They lie and hide so smoothly you may question your own perceptions. They control through fear or manipulation. They turn workplaces and communities into minefields where honesty become nearly impossible and everyone operates in survival mode.

Their departure is transformative. Suddenly, people start trusting each other again. Conversations become honest, inspiring, uplifting. Creativity resurfaces. The atmosphere shifts from toxic to breathable goodwill and care about your colleagues. Work actually gets accomplished without sabotage. People stop watching their backs.

This is different from yesterday’s revelation about discovering your own wholeness. This is about reclaiming collective peace. It’s not “I’m complete without you.” It’s “We’re finally free of you.”

Here’s what matters for those of us in our vintage years: we’ve earned the wisdom to recognize toxicity faster and the courage to celebrate its departure without guilt. We know the difference between constructive conflict and destructive choice behavior and manipulation. We understand that some people’s absence genuinely makes spaces healthier. Resounding with gratitude.

Here’s where living with integrity across every part of our lives matters – we don’t have to perform sadness we don’t feel or manufacture sympathy for someone whose behavior caused genuine harm. We can honor what’s actually true: relief, liberation, joy.

So yes, sing it loud. Not because we’re vindictive, but because we’re finally free to be happy, trusting, and whole again. Sometimes departure deserves an out-loud celebration and dancing with abandon on the rooftops.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

Please share my Daily with your tribes.
This is also crucial – Good and Evil.

#2150