What To Do When You Hate Someone So Much
What happens when someone you hate is constantly on your mind?
This is a question I found online recently, and I thought about how to answer this.
Because, I certainly had a great experience with this once or twice.
The way to stop obsessing about people you hate can be simplified in this famous quote:
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” (David Foster Wallace).
In order to move forward — beyond the hate — you must accept the truth about the situation regarding this Other Person.
It’s true that someone may have done the unspeakable to you; they may have hurt you, ruined you, destroyed you, damaged you or betrayed you beyond what feels is repairable.
But the truth? You are not broken. You will come back. You will rise. You will get through this, no matter what that person did, said or orchestrated.
Stop giving away your power, your choice and the control you truly do have — over the next step.
But to have this resolve, you must accept the truth about your situation and what you are made of.
In order to move forward, you have to make peace that those people are no longer your problem. It’s time to move forward, move on, and focus on what you can control, what is good in your life and where you are going.
In The Year of No Nonsense, I have a whole chapter about dealing with Other People. Because really, the way that we deal with others is about keeping ourselves sane. We have to stop allowing the emotions of Other People to control us; we have to quit allowing their actions to direct our course.
Johnny Cash may have mentioned his own “empire of dirt” in his song, Hurt. But I like to think about the people who have hurt me as nothing but the Kings and Queens of an Empire of Dirt.
With a wave of a strong wind, a flood or a new era, that dirt-filled “empire” is gone. Focus on the pain and the largeness of those people who hurt you as an “empire of dirt,” and somehow, you will find yourself able to push it all away, move forward.
You will then realize one day, that you no longer hate. You simply do not care. Or worse — the opposite of hate is indifference. Regardless, you just don’t care.
And alas, the truth will have set you free.
Post first appeared on Medium.
https://medium.com/@swimbikemom/empire-of-dirt-1743a54b7a19