“I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.”
~Booker T. Washington“
I have to be honest. I was not sure I wanted to write this post. I had serious doubts about whether or not I wanted to create or be part of a dialog that revolved around the idea of hate or any other words that bring out the worst in humankind.
But I have been thinking about this idea for a few days now and I just can’t seem to shake it. As I learn more about myself through the medium of blogging however, I realize that while sometimes I choose the blog posts I want to write about, there are other times that they choose me. This is one of those times.
I have a multitude of thoughts running through my head at the moment, but the one that is dominating at the moment is my “no use” list of words that are off limits to my vocabulary. There are certain words I simply refuse to use because they make me cringe when I say them.
Words like bitch, slut, retard*, the c word (you know that other word people use instead of vagina), any racial slur on record and of course the word hate are all very crippling words in one shape or another.
[*Thanks to my friend Krista, who has worked tirelessly with and for people with developmental disabilities, for her efforts to educate people on why such a word should not be used in any context. Check out her new website on inclusive humanity. She is doing great work to make the world a better place.]
It has been my experience that the moment that those words are floated out in the universe they attract an energy, ideas, behaviours, attitudes and a type of person I am not looking to associate with.
What prompted this post…
This actually all started a few days ago when I came across a very popular blogger named Penelope Trunk. While I typically try to stay away from reading the content of popular bloggers (I do this to try and keep my thinking as fresh and unique as possible), I found myself drawn to her work.
She speaks from the core who of who she is on all subjects, whether it be about her divorce, her horrifying 911 experience, or sharing the details of the Asperger syndrome she suffers from.
As I read through a variety of posts that she has written over the past 8 or 9 years, I stumbled on two very popular ones that generated 466 and 586 comments respectively, with regards to two people she hated.
The posts had a very polarizing effect on the commenters. Some loved what she had to say (to be fair she had legitimate reasons to be upset with both gentleman in question) while others questioned her motives and strategy.
I am here to do neither. It is her blog and she has carved out a successful career speaking her truth. Whether I agree or disagree is irrelevant. But the posts did cause me to reflect on my own life and who and what I am looking to attract to it.
What and who do you want to attract?
I’m not a hater by nature; never have been. I never had a teacher I hated. I never taught students I hated. I didn’t even hate the guy who sucker punched me in the face at a dance back when I was 18 breaking my nose thus requiring me to wear a big ugly cast on my face. (It was t-shaped running up my nose up and across my forehead. My friends kindly referred to me as Jason from the Halloween movies.)
Don’t get me wrong here however. I’m no Mother Theresa. There are people, attitudes, and behaviors that rub me the wrong way, that cause me to get upset, and that cause me to get angry and behave in ways that I am less than proud of.
But I know it’s not in my genetic make up to hate, and more importantly, it is not in my conscious state to hate. I intentionally choose not to use the word because I want nothing to do with any of the strings that come attached with it. I don’t want to be surrounded by people who hate. I don’t want to listen to people who spew hate. I don’t want to read about things that promote hate.
The moment you put hate out in any form you immediately attract it. Hate is a magnet for hate. Hate attracts hate just like smokers attract other smokers, criminals attract other criminals, and adulterers attract other adulterers.
And the more hate we put out there, the more of it we attract.
The origins of hate…
There is no scientific evidence for what I am about to say, but I don’t believe we are born to hate. I don’t believe that we possess a hate gene. It is my belief that hate is a learned behaviour.
I say this because I have yet to encounter a hateful baby or child. I think we all start from a place of love; with a desire to be loving.
But depending on who we are and the environments we have been exposed to, I also believe some are more susceptible to the influences of hate than others, much like some are more susceptible to say the flu virus than others are.
But like smoking, I also believe people have the ability to quit hating if they are truly ready to give it up.
I realize this isn’t easy, as there are an infinite number of reasons to hate. It takes far more strength of character and courage to find reasons to love.
The transition from a hater to a lover…
There is a great line in the movie, The Family Man, where Tia Leoni’s character tells Nicholas Cage’s character, “I choose love.”
I believe it as simple as that (but don’t equate simple with easy). I believe we can choose to love as opposed to hate. So for instance, instead of finding 5 reasons to hate someone, I can instead state 5 reasons why someone is difficult to love.
There may not seem like much of a difference to those two statements, but the implications are immense. The first does not allow for the capacity to love. The second statement does.
So make the choice to quit being a hater. Choose to be a lover of life, of people, of nature, of ideas, of possibilities so you are attracting more of what you want and eliminating that which you don’t want.
To an idea worth quitting,
Dean
*****
Dean Dwyer (that’s me) is on a mission to get people to quit the stuff that is holding them back from being that person they desire to be and doing the work they desire to do. If you are seeing his work for the first time, why not subscribe and forward this to someone who could benefit from what he has to say. He does promise that if you meet him in person he will not talk to you in the third person.
