Hate is NOT a Component of Happy Living!
gopimenon March 20th, 2010
Several years ago I had already realized that nursing a hatred towards an individual for his actions towards me was counter-productive to my happiness! I have written about this in this blog under Happy Living Tip # 6 – How to Forgive Someone.
However, it is only recently I realized that I am still nursing another form of hate, which is not directed at an individual! I am talking about the pet hates that each one of us has – that seem justifiable! Because of this ‘mantle of respectability’ we have given to hate, all of us (without exception) have pet hates and peeves! Worse still, we are even proud of our hatreds and express them loudly and passionately!
Some of us hate Politics and Politicians, some hate Lawyers, some hate Injustice, some hate Religious zealots, some hate Immigrants of other Races, and so on! Furthermore, we believe that it is right to do so. We rationalize and justify our hatred by saying things like: ‘it is right to hate wrong’, ‘it is right to hate evil’, ‘it is right to hate injustice’ and so on.
However I have now come to realize that nursing ANY form of hatred (even seemingly justifiable hatred) is a sure way to being Unhappy!
It is strange that it took me so long to come to this realization, since I espouse Happy Living in this blog. The reason why it took me so long to recognize that ‘Hate is NOT a component of Happy Living’ is because I had learned to give credence and some form of respectability to ‘hate’ as a necessary emotion under certain conditions!
We have all been taught that it is right to hate injustice, to hate evil, to hate child abuse and so on. We have concluded that it is right to do so and that we are doing some good by hating evil!
Personally I have always hated ‘child abuse’, ‘rape’, ‘injustice’, ‘unfairness’, ‘abuse of power’,’ bullying’, ‘road hogs’ etc. I justified my doing so saying that I was right to hate these things! However, being right did not make me any happier!
Every time I thought of an injustice – e.g. child abuse or rapists, it only made me think of taking violent revenge on the perpetrators. I wished that the law would treat them more harshly, even torture them as punishment – ‘an eye for an eye’?
Thus my mind would be filled with such negative thoughts and images and the emotions I generated were ones of rage, vengeance, etc. The end result of nursing such thoughts and emotions within me was that I felt miserable and physically sick!
Only recently did I realize that allowing myself to indulge in such thoughts was one of the main reasons for my unhappiness and poor health! It was counter-productive to the happy living which I try to promote.
So I have decided to refrain from reading about, talking about or thinking about such things (as far as humanly possible); although at times the urge to indulge in condemnation of some faction or group is so difficult! Looks like I’ll have to bite my tongue each time I feel like going off on a pet rant!
Anatomy of Hate
Whatever it is that we hate (whether it is justified or not), the emotions created by hate is NOT one of happiness! We may feel ‘pleased’ that ‘the perpetrator got his just deserts”, ‘vengeance is done’ etc. but it does not create a ‘feel good’ emotion.
Simply put, “Hate does NOT generate good feelings!” When we hate someone or something, the feelings that arise is our mind are those of anger, revulsion, revenge, etc. And none of these are feel-good emotions!
As an example, just think of a toddler you love - immediately you get a warm good feeling, a smile comes to your face automatically when you imagine the child’s antics and you feel good. Now think of someone or something you hate – what feelings engulf you? Are they feel-good emotions? Or are they emotions that make you feel upset?
Of course you will find that in every instance, the feelings generated by hate is one of hurt, anger, revenge, etc. – unhappy emotions, not happy ones.
So let us stop being proud of our pet hates and stop expressing them passionately at the slightest provocation, to anyone who will listen! Also let us be aware when we are holding on to ‘hate thoughts’ in our mind and just let them go. By choosing to replace the ‘hate thoughts’ with ‘loving thoughts’ instead we can indeed create Happy Living as a reality!
- happiness , happy living , unhappiness
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