The Personal Consequences of Hate

Hate brings up a very serious tone and a negative, even destructive, connotation.  Even the use of the word “hate” in language on a day to day basis can contribute to extreme thinking. It is typically a word that arises out of the emotion of anger or fear.  Feeling “hate” drains your energy and can linger on as resentment.

Recognizing and Reducing Hate

Recently, society’s events bring into focus a notable and persistent tendency toward hate-fueled violence, which can leave average people more susceptible to extreme emotions such as hate. I have personally experienced a rise in negative emotions from society’s influences. In regard to this, one of the ways that you can view hate is the inability to accept that which is different from you.

To gain some control over this emotion we need to begin to recognize how hate shows up for us personally and daily.  For example, in the workplace, how often does the thought “I hate when he/she makes decisions without me.” Or, “I hate when they leave their papers in the copier.”  Or at home, “I hate when my spouse leaves the dishes in the sink” and “I hate when my child talks back to me.”  

I wonder about why we have these thoughts.  To reduce the experience of hate we would have to be willing to understand the other person.  Why don’t we like to do that?  …Because we like to be right.  Taking the time to look at someone else’s thinking, believing, or doing differently than you challenges you to accept that you might be wrong, that an opposing view could also be true, or that the two people jsut might just be different. It takes quite a stretch of expanding our mind to take in things that are different from us.

The next time your frustration is so high and you think a coworker or family member is intentionally trying to torture you by doing something that you “hate,” step back and try to think of some realistic reasons why someone might be thinking, acting or believing that way.  Accepting this different outlook will reduce the intensity of “hate.”  Even if you can reduce the emotion to something less intense like “dislike or disapprove” that is a success!  From this thought you might be able to open a conversation with this person or just feel more love.