You Cannot Hate The World and Love Yourself

Hatred has many interesting qualities. Like a person lost in the desert, it gives its victims an overwhelming thirst for more. Constantly on the search for evidence to prove them right, every day is spent in dedication to their hatred. Looking everywhere they go for those they disdain. Even if it means that something terrible has happened, they feel a perverse joy if it has been carried out by someone who operates within a part of the community they already hate.

What they do not realize is this truth: You find what you are looking for. If you hate any group white or black, Christian or Muslim, Asian or African - you will have no shortage of evidence to prove yourself right. Even if you are wrong, you will warp events to fit your perspective, and gravitate toward others who feel the same as you. You cannot argue a person out of hatred, because their entire sense of self becomes based in delusion.

Your life is everything that happens from birth to death. It is like a tapestry. The people you know and all that is happening right now, are all part of your life. It you hate any part of the tapestry, you are hating the whole. No matter how right it feels, if you hate and demonize others, you are hating yourself. It can be seen in how people make choices that are damaging to themselves and those that they love. You hate what you fear, and fear what you hate.

We are so very powerful that we can choose a different way. It takes practice and consistency. Hate does not happen in a vacuum, and requires a dedication to its practice. Focusing on irritation, we gradually find resentment. Resentment cultivated gradually becomes hatred. We can easily create a different world by slowly and gently reminding ourselves what we truly value, and placing our focus there, on what we do want, instead of what we fear and hate.

We are through the first week of the 40 Day Challenge. Gently touch the edge of calming practice, the study of what makes you feel kinder and more hopeful, and find others who do the same. There is a community of people all over this planet who feel this way. The world is not powerful enough to make you hate. By committing actively to kindness, compassion, joy and positive indifference we can let go of hatred. We create forbearance and forgiveness for the world, and for ourselves. You cannot hate the world and love yourself.