Where is all the anger and hatred coming from? Have you noticed it? It seems to be on the rise and no one seems interested in stopping it. Well, we very much should.
What is hatred?
To put it bluntly, hatred is a toxic, treacherous and some might say, evil trait. It is a terrible emotion to feel and it does a great deal of damage to anyone exhibiting or experiencing hatred directed at them. Its an extremely strong feeling of profound dislike, typically tainted by feelings of hostility and even revulsion toward an individual, a group or even an idea. Hatred is the complete opposite of love — so those who have feelings of hatred don’t have love in their hearts for that person, group or idea. And what is frightening, is that hatred eventually takes over and takes hold of a person, creating more anger and more hatred, which then eventually replaces love.
And when love is gone, so is kindness. And when kindness is gone, so is happiness. People who hate, are almost always alone at some point in their life. They become so consumed by it, that it pushes out the light and replaces it with a malevolent darkness.
The consequence of hate, however, is twofold. On the one hand, hate has many consequences for people harmed by hate. Domestic hate may cause physical harm or even death. Active hate on the streets harms and kills others in the community. These are the obvious consequences of hate.
But the other consequence is less obvious. Hate creates an empty hole in the individual who hates. And the only thing that can fill that hole is more hate. Everything else is invalid and cannot prove the need for hate. The more one begins to feel that emptiness, the more one has to hate—that empty hole is frightening. The more one fears it, the more one builds hate rooted in that fear. – Psychology Today
I don’t know why hatred and anger are on the rise — I think there are many reasons, but politics is definitely one of them. We’re all being conditioned to hated someone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and political affiliation. There is no shortage of politicians and TV talking heads pushing people to be angry — to hate, because unwarranted anger leads to hate. And the reasons are many, but one of them is because a divided people are weak. When you can divide the masses and turn them against each other, the darklings causing it gain power, wealth and influence. In essence, they’re bad actors with malicious intentions and they’re using all of us for their own benefit.
Adam Smith once wisely said: “Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind. There is, in the very feeling of those passions, something harsh, jarring, and convulsive, something that tears and distracts the breast, and is altogether destructive of that composure and tranquillity of mind which is so necessary to happiness.”
Hatred breeds division, sadness, violence and suffering, but happiness does the opposite. A person who lets hatred in, almost always becomes unhappy because they lose their compassion and every other good trait. As stated, when hatred comes on the scene, love is gone and when love is gone, so too is kindness and when love and kindness are gone, happiness always leaves too — and its almost always the person harboring hatred that loses all their happiness, because hatred consumes them.
“Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” – Unknown
What is the solution?
Good question. One that has been asked for millennia. But one good place to start, is to always be aware when hatred is sneaking in — always be on guard to its creeping evil and be prepared to stop it in its tracks. If we value our own personal happiness, we have to be hyper vigilant and treasure it enough to put calm, understanding and tolerance in its place. Why does someone’s race or sexual orientation matter to someone else? Why would any person ever want to let something so irrelevant in the scheme of the vast universe, destroy their happiness? If anyone wants you to hate someone, always put your guard up immediately. People who sew division and hatred are not good and we must be very wary of them, because they are out to do harm.
“When you hear a person say, “I hate,” adding the name of some race, nation, religion, or social class, you are dealing with a belated mind. That person may dress like a modern, ride in an automobile, listen to the radio, but his or her mind is properly dated about 1000 B.C.” – Harry Emerson Fosdick
