Hate is in part what keeps us going when our lives have been put on hold. Every time there are severe disruptions in our lives, the stronger the hate we have for everything around us. Hate avails a major form of catharsis for releasing, and providing relief from such repressed emotions.
Hate is also an intense repulsion for something or someone, which falsely inflates the ego and makes one feel very superior and self-righteous against the thing or person who is hated. It makes the one hating, feel better, or so it seems.
It is very important not to equally forget that hate is a very potent and mind-consuming emotion. It is a mental poison that can contaminate your mind, rot your nervous system, and depress your soul.
If you suddenly set eyes on a thing or person you hate, the sudden surge of adrenaline into your entire system persists until that thing or person gets out of sight and mind. That sudden surge takes a huge adverse toll on your nervous and circulatory systems and even the brain.
When you hate, you must also be strong enough to let people hate you back. Because the emotion and energy you give out is what you get in return. The aura of a hate-filled person attracts exactly what that person emits into his or her own magnetic field.
So to balance this equation, we should accept that it is more liberating to let go of hateful emotions by deliberately practicing empathy. We may need to also reevaluate the circumstances that may have led us to hate that thing or person and work on overcoming the same. We should as well, reflect on what is our abiding fate if other things or persons keep hateful emotions against us. These will guide us back to the path of purposely reconciliation with ourselves.
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.