Hi Hater!

In order to understand the nature of hate, you have to know what it's like to be a hater. In the course of a lifetime, all of us (if we are honest) have been a hater. A great majority of us have been victimized by haters but, at least one or two times, we have been guilty of the same thing ourselves... (again, if we are honest).

When I use the term "hate", I'm basically talking about jealousy and envy and I believe that it's impossible to have never felt these two strong emotions for something or someone. I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about how I was envious of someone who was living the life I had always wanted for myself. This was a mild form of "hate" without the maliciousness... it was more an envious type of thing. One of the Ten Commandments tells us that we should not covet, meaning simply that you shouldn't want something that is not yours. However, the lines get blurred a lot of times. Here is an example of wanting something that is no longer yours...

I was involved with a young lady once who abruptly (I thought) broke off our relationship. I don't think we had stopped seeing each other a good week before I saw her with another guy... a guy who I had been pretty cool with and who knew that I was seeing this young lady. I made my self sick with the hateration that I spread. I said some of the nastiest things about the girl, who I professed to love just a few weeks before, and I saved my most vilest comments for the guy, who had been considered a friend or at least, cool with me before I saw him with the girl. I talked to anyone who would listen about how "corny" the guy was, how she would never be happy with him, and how he would never do the things I did for her. For a week, I was consumed with their lives... so consumed that I didn't have a life of my own anymore. I was too caught up in what they were doing.

See that's the thing about haters... they are so worried about the object of their hate that they can't enjoy life and they can't get anything of their own going on. In many cases, the object of their hate is not even aware that they feel this way and, if they are aware... if they are smart... they don't concern themselves with it and the hater is the one wasting his or her time in the end.

A friend of mine at the time, "Loose Goose", (Okay, you can stop laughing... that actually was his nickname... a great reason why you should just say no to drugs.) was sitting in his car with me one night. He was smoking a big fat turbo joint yet, talking and making a lot of sense. I was going on and on about the girl and the guy and he said simply, "Man, you are blowin' my high and if you got high, you'd understand what I was talking about." He said that too but, the main thing he said was, "All this energy you're spendin' worryin' about them, you could be puttin' towards findin' a new girl 'cause neither one of them look like they care about you right now."

That was one of those truths that was so real, it couldn't be argued. Once I looked at it that way, I stopped getting myself so worked up. I stopped focusing on my broken heart and my wounded pride and started focusing on doing something to make myself feel better. Once I found some joy in my own life, my hateration ended and I was able to move on.

That's the thing about hate, it can literally make you physically sick and it's never worth the energy that people put into it. I have read about people going to work the day after the election and getting evil stares and gritting teeth from McCain-Palin supporters. Why? What was a minute of that going to get any of them? It's an election... it's not the end of the world. Their lives are not going to change that much too soon. If anything, they ought to be saying, "thank you" but, that's another topic for another blog post.

Since I've been a hater, I understand the logic of the hater somewhat or, at least, the point of view for the moment. I choose not to be a hater... it's so counter-productive. Instead, I've chosen to view the world through the eyes of love and hope. As a result, I feel so much better. Don't hate... Cooperate!