LOVE >HATE!

LOVE >HATE!

by Allen Merritt (©2017)

I noticed a posting today on social media that read, “Love changes things.”

I immediately clicked on the “Like” button and scrolled on. However, it stuck with me how polar opposites actually are alike in that they CAN change things. They can change things for the better or for the worse. People can benefit from the positive or destroy by the negative. More specifically, if you use the same format and change the text to read, “Hate changes things”, you’d also be making a true statement. I guess it depends on where ones priorities and/or individual perspectives and differences of opinion are.

Interestingly enough, I watched a film last night where a character wrote a letter to another prior to their passing. In the letter was a vote of confidence and encouragement to the recipient whose image was one of cocky vigilant anger built upon hate. The letter advised them of their potential to be great at their career. What captured my attention was how the letter referred to the idea that “Love” was the key to making their career the best imaginable. It would be the element of their success. This simple letter led to a shift from defiance to one of acceptance of self and others. The bad guy became a good guy.

I believe this to be one hundred percent true as I ponder the current climate we live under today. Bullying, body shaming, political incorrectness, slamming people publically (aka slandering) and throwing shade only serves to prove how bad manners and hatred endorse only one singular purpose and that is to “hurt” someone.

Another line from the movie suggested how anger breeds more anger. There can be no peace in that. Everyone loses in the end. Hurt is exacerbated. Pain is personified.

It wasn’t that long ago I purchased a hat to help aide in fundraising for shooting victims. The campaign promoted the statement, “Love>Hate.”

I love hats and have a number of them in my collection. It is a simple baseball type cap with nothing fancy about it. I like it that way, simple and to the point. I have had a few appreciative comments about it out in public.

When I think about it in my own quirky sort of way, I see a connection between my love for hats and the statement of how love is greater than hate. If I take the verbiage at face value, then I get what I get. If I live up to the phrase and believe in it, I also get what I get. It’s about seeing further and deeper into it as something more than a statement, more than a concept.

Ultimately, I choose to think of the word “hate” as a negative verb in and of itself. It is completely defined by all that is un-constructive or better yet destructive. It seems like a battle between good and evil. However, if I tweak my outlook and see the word “hate” as a noun with a silent “e” at the end, then I give myself a gift of yet another “hat.” And, as I have previously mentioned, I love hats! I wear them all the time. More importantly, I would much rather wear a hat then dwell in hate or wear it on my sleeve. That seems like a more positive approach to thinking on the subject rather than promoting ways to further enrage people as our culture appears to be doing.

Which direction would you rather go in?

Let’s escalate the positive. Let’s embody the Love>Hate phenomena.

Let's put on our thinking caps and think about it!

Cheers!