Michael's Musings ©2001:
"An Antidote to Happiness"

I was sitting in my favorite local outdoor cafe, watching the people walk by on a Friday night, when I saw a teenage girl dressed in "Goth" style, with a long black skirt and a black "Marilyn Manson" sweatshirt. On the back, like a walking billboard proclaiming a philosophy as black as the shirt, were the words:

This is your world in which
we grow and we will grow
to hate you.

I guess Marilyn Manson, and the people who think he/she is worth listening to, have not yet learned the hard way about hate. In my lifetime I have not really had much personal experience with hate since that unexplainable and unwarranted hatred of a certain red-headed girl in grade four (it must have been a karmic thing).

But I have been a keen observer of Life for a long time, looking for ways to live a life which would produce the most pleasure and the least pain; and I have often seen the fate of those who hate. My inescapable conclusions about hate, which I have come to accept as Facts of Life, are these:

Hate hurts, but never heals.
Hate hurts only the one who hates.
Hate limits one's natural ability to love and be loved.
Hate is the very worst choice for those who want to be happy.

Another thing I have come to believe, which never occurred to me for most of my life, is that hate for another is usually the result of a hate for something in oneself. When we see in someone else something that reminds us of something we don't like about ourselves, it presents a convenient opportunity to "project" our guilt onto them, our guilt for having this thing for which we have blamed ourselves. Better to blame them than to have to blame ourselves, right? If we can make them guilty for this thing, it might make us less guilty, or at least let us stop feeling our own guilt while we are busy blaming them, and hating them for it.

Hate is not the opposite of Love, but a lack of Love.

I believe we all want to love and be loved. We were born as innocent babies, and babies do not hate until they have learned that not everyone will love them the way they want to be loved. When you first discover that you are being denied the love and attention you were used to receiving, that is when the blaming begins. You blame them for not giving the love you expect, or blame yourself for doing something wrong, or for being something wrong, that made them not want to love you.

The insidious thing about the blame game is that blaming them will make you feel guilty for doing the blaming, so it is always a game you can never win, whether you blame yourself or blame others. Blaming will not make you less unhappy when you cannot have what you want.

Hate is an antidote to happiness.

Hate doesn't just happen; you have to judge someone guilty of something before you have a reason to hate them, don't you? Even if they aren't really guilty, you still have to blame them or you won't be able to hate them. If they look like someone who hurt you somehow, or they do something that reminds you of something someone did that hurt you, or they actually do something that hurts you; you have to judge them and convict them before you can punish them by hating them.

It's a choice you make, a choice which will not ever lead to happiness, because it just puts you back into that no-win blame game. It only adds another thing you can feel guilty about, even if that feeling is on an unconscious level. You will waste a lot of energy keeping up the hating, and it will not even "punish" them - only limit the energy you have to invest in creating your own happiness.

Choosing to hate is choosing to punish yourself. It's like shooting yourself in the foot just because somebody stepped on it by mistake.
- Michael Star ©1999

Hey, this works for me. It might work for you. Try it, you might like it! It's your life, and your choice. Whatever you do is right for YOU.

 Click for "Michael's Musings"  ©2001 by  Michael Star