by Eddie Vegger

Created on: October 18, 2008

What does hatred do to you?

Hatred rots you from the inside out. There isn't a person on the planet that hasn't been hurt by someone. But when I translate that hurt into hate, I magnify its importance. The more I focus on it, the bigger it becomes. It soon occupies my time and consciousness much more than the original incident did. What's wrong with this picture? If I am really upset about something that someone did to me, hanging onto hate around that incident keeps me in a jail that I've constructed myself, while the perpetrator goes free. He/she might not even remember the event that caused me to hate them, but I will not forget it as long as I keep building that jail caused by my obsession with how I was wronged.

The opposite of hatred is love. This is not to say that I expect that I will love someone I once hated. What is does mean is that if I fill my life with love, I'm much less likely to have room for hate, and vice versa. Think about the last time you were around someone who was spewing hatred. Did you want to spend time with them? Probably not. If, on the other hand, I fill my life with people I care about, creating art I am passionate for, doing work that makes a difference, taking care of my body physically and spiritually, then I create love. People are drawn to love just as they are repelled by hate.

I heard a story on NPR that seemed to illustrate this point. There is a from Auburn Washington that dresses up in a Superman outfit and goes out in public on a regular basis. He's not a nut. He lost his wife to an illness, and the loss devastated him. He found that putting on a Superman costume and going out in public made him feel better, so he started doing it. Most people would be afraid of the ridicule that this behavior might cause, but the reporter that accompanied this man said that, because the man expected people to like him, they did. Even when someone's first reaction might be to make fun of or ridicule him as soon as they realized that he was dressing up to honor the memory of his dead wife and that he was totally positive about the experience of dressing up as a super hero, they liked him. If this same man went around town with a chip on his shoulder, reacting with hatred or anger anytime someone made a crack about a grown man dressing up in a costume, he would be miserable. Because he approaches his hobby out of a sense of love and tolerance, he is accepted and loved back by the people he meets.

I want to be careful here. I'm not trying to be too metaphysical. It does seem to be a universal law that what you focus on with your mind eventually manifests itself in your life. So if my mind is focused on hatred, that is where my life leads me toward more hatred and, ultimately, to misery. If my mind is focused on love and beauty and kindness and peace, that is where my life will lead me, toward serenity. It really is pretty simple, although it takes discipline to do.

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