Have you ever heard the phrase, “Hate is a strong word”? Hate is indeed a strong word, but it is also a strong emotion that is ever-present in the world today. However, hate only causes harm.  The truth is, when trying to make the world a better place, you should meet the it with love, not hatred.

Why Do We Hate?

Everyone has experienced the emotion of hate. People express hate towards many different things like where they live, a person who hurt them, a certain type of food, etc. There are several reasons why we feel hate.

A Distraction from Our Insecurities

Sometimes, we express hate because we want to distract ourselves from the things we are insecure about. As mentioned above, hate is a strong emotion, and it has the power to overshadow other emotions we may be experiencing.

In-Group vs. Out-Group Mentality

As we go through life, we quickly learn the in-group vs. out-group mentality. This means that we like everything and everyone that exists in our inner circle, but we dislike anything and anyone that exists outside of that circle. This is the same mentality that leads to large conflicts in society.

Projecting Ourselves on Others

Another reason why we hate is that we tend to project the things we dislike about ourselves onto other people. That way, we express hate towards other people rather than focusing our hate inward.

Finding a Scapegoat

When we get frustrated with life, we like to find someone or something to blame it on. However, blaming someone else for your difficulties prevents you from seeing how your own actions affected your predicament.

Hatred is Harmful

While we all experience hate, dwelling on hatred for a long period of time can be detrimental to your well-being and harm your relationships with other people.

Creates Separation

Hatred has the power to divide people and pit people against each other. This is problematic because separation leads to conflict and discrimination.

Health Consequences

When we hold onto hate for too long, our body begins to react negatively. Here are just a few of the health consequences of prolonged hatred:

• Increases in cortisol
• Increases in adrenaline
• Insomnia
• Higher likelihood of chronic illness
• Weight gain
• Damaged nervous system

Damage to Your Mental Wellbeing

Furthermore, hate causes damage to your mental health. A few mental well-being consequences include the following:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Paranoia
• Restlessness
• Obsessive Thinking

Makes You Lonely

Finally, people dislike being around people who talk negatively all the time. Being filled with hate can lead you to lose relationships and struggle to form new relationships.

How to Spread More Love

You can significantly improve your life and the lives of the people around you by spreading love instead of hate. Here are a few simple suggestions for how to spread more love:

Share Your Passions with Others

First, everyone is passionate about something. You can spread love by teaching other people about your passions or sharing your creations.

Stand Up for the Things You Care About

Second, you can stand up for the things you care about when other people express hate. Supporting the things that you love is a great way to share that love with others.

Do Random Acts of Kindness

Third, random acts of kindness are a great way to share love with others. There are so many simple ways to spread kindness. For some ideas, check out this list of over 100 random acts of kindness.

Make Someone Smile Every Day

Finally, you can spread love by striving to make at least one person smile every day. Whether it’s your significant other, a friend, a family member, or a stranger, everyone can benefit from a smile.

Up is one of my favorite Pixar movies. Released in 2009, it tells the story of Ellie and Carl. The two met when they are children and connect because they are both fans of explorer Charles Muntz. They form their own explorers club and later marry.

After Ellie has a miscarriage, the couple decides to focus on saving for a trip to Paradise Falls, a place they always wanted to visit together. But the couple end up having to spend their savings for it on more immediate, urgent needs. Years pass and Carl decides that he is going to surprise Ellie with a trip to Paradise Falls. On the day he plans to tell her, she become ill, is hospitalized, and dies soon after.

After Ellie’s death, Carl still lives in the home they built together. The city wants to buy him out so they can build skyscrapers in his neighborhood. His house is the only one on the block and is surrounded by skyscrapers. After accidentally hitting one of the construction workers, the court orders him to go to an assisted living facility.

But Carl has other plans. He decides that he’s going to keep his promise to Ellie. He turns his house into an airship by tying tons of helium balloons to his house and flies away.

What Carl didn’t expect, was that an 8-year-old boy named Russell would accidentally stowaway on his adventure. Russell met Carl as a Wilderness Explorer who was seeking to earn his final merit badge by helping the elderly. From there a whole new adventure begins.

This movie is really touching, and I cry whenever I watch it. The real message of it is that the relationships we have with others are our greatest adventures in life. We tend to lose sight of all that we have and don’t realize how lucky we are, until we don’t have them anymore.

Think about the people you love. How can you connect with them to make every day an incredible adventure together?

When you think about people, do you tend to think about what you love about them or what irritates you?

If you said yes to the latter, you’re not alone. Our brains have a “negativity bias” that pushes us to see the negative in people and situations, so that we can stay cautious and keep ourselves protected. By seeing the negative in others, our brain puts its guard up, so that we can stay safe from people who might hurt us.

However, if we constantly focus on the negative qualities in others, we attract an endless stream of negativity into our lives. Instead, simply changing our focus to seeing the good in others is an incredibly powerful way to feel happier, be more positive, and feel amazing.

How Does Looking for the Good in Others Help Us Feel Better?

You Grow Yourself
If you focus on people’s negative traits, there is absolutely no benefit for you. You will compare your qualities to theirs and feel superior to them, rather than focusing on your faults and working to improve them.

However, when you look at the good in others, you have a positive example to aspire to. Whether it is positive personality traits or particular abilities, by observing how good others are, you will feel inspired to improve yourself too.

You Feel Happier
Whatever you focus on grows. When you start looking for the good in others, you will just see more of the good. Qualities you did not notice earlier in people will begin to pop up unexpectedly. Your interactions will be more positive, and you will begin to feel good energy surrounding everyone. When you feel like everyone around you is amazing, there is no way you won’t feel tremendously happier and more positive.

On the other hand, if we focus on the bad qualities of everyone around us, we dig a ditch or ourselves. We will end up feeling frustrated with people’s lack of ability, get annoyed by their negative traits, or even feel afraid and unsafe. When you focus on the negative, you will end up feeling more negative too. As they say, misery loves company.

You Make People Feel Good
Is there any negative outcome of making people around you feel good? Of course not! When you look for the good in others, you make everyone you interact with feel special and worthy. Not only will they like YOU more, and maybe even be kinder to you and be more helpful, but you may even help them in ways you can’t imagine. One in four people suffer from mental health issues, many of which stem from feelings of low self-worth. By choosing to find the good in someone, you may never know the lasting impact you may have on someone’s self-esteem and self-worth.

You See the Good in You
When we judge others, we are often judging an aspect of ourselves. For example, if you don’t like how loud someone is, it’s quite possible that you don’t give yourself the permission to be loud. At some point, you decided “loud is bad”.

When you learn to look at the good in others, you can accept the parts of yourself that you have previously rejected.

Life is Too Short
Your energy, thoughts, and time are precious. Why waste it on finding faults in others? If you truly don’t get along with someone, move on! Don’t get hung up on their negative qualities.

Looking for the good in others is always a win-win situation. Try practicing it today; in each interaction you have, try to think of one good thing about the other person. At the end of the day, notice how good you feel!

Any kind of criticism, whether it’s constructive or not, can be challenging to both hear and handle. And it is nearly impossible to go through life without getting any at all. Like today’s quote says, “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” The truth is, any kind of criticism we receive is good information to have.

The best way to deal with criticism is to use them as an opportunity to improve and challenge yourself. While this may seem easier said than done, it’s worth finding a way to benefit from something that hurts or deeply disappoints you.

Now if you are dealing with a person who is overly critical of you or just finds fault in everything you do anyway, this is also good information to have. Maybe hearing their criticism is an opportunity for you to start re-evaluating you own self-worth. Perhaps it’s time to think about how much time, effort, and energy you give someone who isn’t constructive in their criticism and who seeks to drag you down.

Here are some ways you can respond better to criticism:

Hear What the Other Person is Saying

Regardless of intent, it is always wise to listen to what the other party is saying and try to understand their perspective. You might not agree, especially at first. But if you allow yourself the chance to listen, are giving yourself an opportunity to experience a few good things.

One, it allows you to better understand others and their perspectives/experience. Two, they might be exposing some truths that you need to hear to improve yourself. I don’t know about you, but I surround myself with people who have no trouble calling me out on my shit. And I honestly value it. I would rather have people around me who are honest and tell me the truth when I am doing something wrong or making a mistake, than people who say “yes” all the time or agree with my perspective. When they tell me, it stings a little, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Be Aware of Impulsive Reactions

We all have coping mechanisms, and sometimes, when we feel we’ve been wronged or disappointed in some way, we react impulsively. Some might lash out and respond defensively, and others might give up on a dream or idea because of the wound that criticism has left.

Take a step back to process and reflect on what has been said to you before responding.

Be Gracious

Responding to someone’s criticism by being thankful and grateful for their perspective is a great way to begin accepting what they said. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with their feelings at all. You are merely grateful for them sharing their feelings with you.

All that being said, I know it is hard to not see some criticism as a personal attack. Try to detach yourself and focus on whether or not there is validity to what the person is saying. Be honest with yourself. Maybe them saying something to you is a gift and chance for you to improve.

Turn the Negatives into a Positive

I remember one writer’s group I belonged to that shredded apart a short story I wrote. I went into the session not expecting so much criticism. I left feeling like the worst writer. The next day I reviewed their comments again and realized how constructive and helpful their criticisms were. These were valuable lessons about technique that I still think about today. I’m genuinely grateful for their honesty and suggestions.

Finding the positives within a negative is no easy task, and don’t be disappointed if this takes some time and practice. It often entails sacrificing ego and being completely honest with yourself. In short, it sometimes requires surrender.

Remember, it isn’t always easy hearing criticism from others. When it happens, try to detach yourself from any instant emotions you have and look for any potential wisdom that you can gain from it.

In Batman Begins, this quote is said twice. In the beginning of the movie, when Bruce is acting a bit foolish at a hotel with supermodels, he runs into Rachel. He tells her that all of what she has just seen isn’t him. He says that inside he is more. In fairness to Bruce, he is trying to maintain a public image as a playboy, so he isn’t suspected of being Batman. Rachel doesn’t know this and tells him that deep down he might still be that great kid he was, but that it isn’t who you are underneath, it what you do that defines you. Bruce stares off as she walks away, knowing she is disappointed.

Then towards the end of the film, Rachel encounters Batman and she asks him what his name is. Batman looks at her and says, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me,” knowing that Rachel while know that it is him. He then goes off to do his batmanery and save Gotham from Ra’s al Ghul and his League of Assassins.

Actions speak louder than words. And who you are is determined by what you do, rather than what you say you’ll do.

We often go through life with the best of intentions. We tell ourselves that we are going to get back to the gym and lose those last 10 pounds or finally write that book that we’ve been wanting to write. But we don’t seem to ever get around to it. Why? Because we get distracted and lose our focus. We don’t prioritize the important things that actually matter to us.

Remember, people aren’t going to remember what you meant to do. They will only remember what did.

Sometimes things go wrong. Maybe we start a business and fail or we move to a new city but come back, feeling lonely and drained. Sometimes people judge us when this happens. During these situations, it can be easy to start doubting ourselves. However, in order to go through and grow through these difficult situations, it is necessary to return to who we are deep within and trust ourselves.

In uncertain times, you have to be able to fall back onto yourself and trust yourself. No matter what is happening around you, don’t lose confidence in yourself.

5 Ways to Trust Yourself

Accept Your Current Situation

The first step to being able to trust in yourself is to accept the situation. If something unexpected just happened, this might not be your first instinct. We like to blame, run away, or avoid tough situations. It’s easy to even dump the responsibility onto someone or something else.

However, this is not a sign of trust. This is a sign of avoidance. To trust yourself, you have to accept that things did not go according to plan. How can you trust someone who avoids the situation? Own up to it. Not only will this help you trust yourself, but it also makes other people trust you more.

Positive Self Talk

When something goes wrong, it’s incredibly easy to start beating yourself up about it. However, this will never result in self-trust. In fact, it’s going to have the opposite effect. When you start criticizing yourself and saying things like “I can never do things right” or “Whatever I try always goes wrong”, you just further attract situations like that and reduce your self-confidence.

Notice what thoughts you have about yourself. Are they positive or negative? If you realize that you tend to have self-deprecating thoughts, try catching yourself and reframing them into something more positive. How you talk to yourself matters!

Accept Yourself

One of the most important foundations of trusting yourself is to accept yourself for who you are. Don’t be afraid of judgment or standing out from the crowd. When you pretend to be someone you are not, you immediately become untrustworthy. When you feel like someone is lying to you, can you trust them? Of course not! So how can you trust yourself when you know you are being inauthentic. Embrace your quirks, your mistakes, and your weirdness – they are what make you who you are. And the truth is, the world needs who you were made to be.

Build on Your Strengths

To trust yourself, you need to know what skills you can rely on. You need to be aware of your strengths and build on them. If you aren’t sure what your strengths are, ask people who know you well. Spend time improving your strengths, rather than criticizing yourself about your weaknesses.

Spend Time with Yourself

One of the foundations of trusting yourself is knowing yourself. As you spend time with yourself, you can become more aware of your thoughts, biases, and behaviors. Just like any other relationship, the more you get to know yourself, the more trust you can build with yourself.

In conclusion, trusting yourself is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. When you trust yourself, you build the confidence to work towards your goals, to get up when you fail and try again, to stand up for what you want, and to pursue your dreams.

When something bad happens to you, how do you react? Most of us tend to wonder, “why me?” or have moments where we kind of wallow in self-pity for a while. These are common responses and innate to the human condition. But, let me ask you this. How helpful are these reactions?

The truth is two things happen when we find meaning in our suffering. One, we grow. A lot. It is through our most difficult times that we learn the lessons we need to learn. We also gain incredible experience and build up our resiliency. Two, by getting out of the victim mindset of “why is this happening to me?” we can shift our perspective to where what is happening can even be empowering. Perhaps now we can look at it like, “Maybe this is happening for me, because I will need to have gone through this for my next chapter.” For example, maybe you had to go through a horrible relationship to see what you want and need more clearly. And hopefully, that understanding of yourself is something that can help you choose your next partner.

While we might not have been able to control what happened to us, by finding meaning and purpose in our suffering, we can take ownership and responsibility of what we do next and how we choose to respond. We can take action to make things better for ourselves, rather than stay in a victim mindset and remain powerless.  

Like Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, said in his book in Man’s Search for Meaning, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” We can’t change what happened to us. But we can change how we respond to it.

How to Find Meaning in Your Suffering

Stop Seeing Things as Black or White

Your challenges don’t have to be classified as “bad”. Life does not exist only on opposite ends of a spectrum; every experience has a positive and negative. Sometimes, we just need to look for it with a little more focus. Practice looking for the good in your situation. Be willing to see your pain in a positive light.

Shift in Mindset

We often think that we cannot be happy when we are struggling or something bad happens. However, the ability to be happy only depends on you, not the situation. There are countless stories of people who become disabled, lose all their money in a bad business deal, or suffer through incredible challenges, like concentration camps, but still find a way to feel optimistic. It goes to show that the ability to feel happy lies in your choice, not in your circumstances. If they can find light in such extreme situations, so can you!

Find the Opportunity

You can choose what the light represents to you, whether it is knowledge, wisdom, consciousness, God, or joy. The beauty about being broken is that it is when we can access deeper truths and learnings that we may have been blind to earlier. When we face challenges, that is when we often grow the most. When we reach rock-bottom, we often turn inward. Maybe that’s the nudge you need to return to your faith in God or in yourself. You become stronger. You access your truth.

It’s easy to get caught up in the egoistic material world, chasing money and success, displaying our best lives on social media, and running after fame or popularity. Arrogance and pride can blind us to what we truly desire. At that point, deeper truths, wisdom, and peace hardly seem important. Yet is that life truly satisfying? Quite often we are looking for happiness in the wrong places. And only when we face a setback, and get thrown off our path, do we realize we were on the wrong path in the first place! The happiness we want is inward, not outward.

Practice Gratitude

The best way to let the light in when you are wounded is to practice gratitude. When you are able to be grateful for everything that you DO have, rather than focusing on your pain, you can tap into the joy that is available to you. So focus on all the blessings in your life. As you practice feeling more grateful, you will find even more reasons to be grateful.

To take it a step further, try being grateful for the challenge you are facing. What is it teaching you? How is it helping you grow? How could it be shaping you for the better?

Light and Dark

Be aware of both joy and pain in your life, and practice being able to sit with both emotions. Know that it is a part of life; without darkness there is no light. Similarly, without the bad, you won’t be able to recognize the good. Being able to accept both ends of the spectrum is integral to being able to find inner peace.

Life is like a rollercoaster ride, with highs and lows. As much as we would like it, we can’t avoid the lows. Suffering is a part of life, as is joy. In fact, suffering can help teach us a lot about ourselves and help us grow in ways that an easy path cannot. So, the next time something “bad” happens, find the positive in it, and remind yourself that it is an opportunity to let some more light into your life. It is a blessing, not a punishment.

When you think about your future, what comes to mind? Now compare your present to what you expected in your past. Are you the person that you thought you would be?

We often make big plans and goals for the future. However, we are quick to overlook the small daily decisions that actually creates our future.

If you want to have a different life in the future, you need to focus on your present habits and the small decisions you make every day.

6 Tiny Habits That Can Change the Trajectory of Your Life

Read More

Reading is one of the best ways to improve yourself. Whether you want to be more successful in your career, be a better parent, be wiser, or know more about a subject, reading is the key. If you hate reading books, don’t get disheartened. Reading articles, educational blogs, or even social media posts is as beneficial. The point is to continue to grow and expand your knowledge, whatever the medium.

Take Action

When you want to do something, take action. Don’t procrastinate or wait around for “someday”. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If you want to become fitter, hit the gym today. If you want to learn a new skill, sign up for a course today. If you want to wake up earlier, go to bed earlier tonight.

Take Care of Your Basic Needs

One of the first things we overlook when life gets busy is our physical health. When we have a deadline, we stay up late, trying to cram in some more work. When our schedules are too busy, we skip the gym. When we are too tired, we choose fast food over a nutritious meal.

However, ignoring our bodies’ needs is the first step to burnout and illness in the future. Ensure you take care of yourself today, so that you stay healthy in the future.

Practice Saying No

We all have limited time and energy every day. Keep in mind that the more you say “no”, the more space you have to say “yes” to the things that actually matter to you. Be stingy with your time and energy. Before saying “yes”, ask yourself “does saying yes to this bring me closer to my future goals?”. If not, say no.

Improve One Thing

Sometimes trying to achieve a goal or become a future version of yourself can feel intimidating. Where do you start? What should you focus on?

It can be overwhelming, especially if you have multiple goals. Rather than trying to change everything at once, just focus on improving one thing. For example, if you want to be healthier, try eating one less unhealthy snack today. If you want to write a book, set a goal to write one paragraph. If you want to be more productive, focus on just one additional task you can get done today.

See Each Day as an Opportunity

Rather than waking up with the attitude that you have to get through the day, every morning ask yourself ‘how can I change my life today?’. This simple mindset shift will help you take radical action, get out of your comfort zone, and massive take action even when you don’t feel like it, so that you can create the future you truly want.  

Even the smallest action today creates a foundation for your future. Pay attention to the little things in the present moment to bloom into the best version of yourself in the future.