Armchair Musings #3 - Hate Is One Of The Most Powerful Motivators On Earth

“Do not use your anger to fight, young warrior, or your anger will control you!”

I watched the old man slam the wooden stick into yet another inexperienced chosen one. It was my 3rd day of living like a potato would if he owned a couch (or whatever the origin of couch potato may be. Who came up with that?)

Anyway, as I started to rethink my choices of how to spend summer vacation, I started to wonder why it was so important that the chosen one turn off his anger. As they say, passion can be any degree of emotions on the spectrum, from extreme love to extreme hate. So if he needs to be passionate about what he’s doing, why can’t hate, and resultantly anger, be his drive?

So I crawled out of the couch, my bones creaking angrily from the unexpected motion, and crawled into my armchair.

And thus, I began to muse…

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Hate!

It’s part of the reason I’m writing this article. I had been content with my potato-forgotten-in-a-couch (maybe this?) lifestyle until someone made me hate them. The motivations are unclear, I know, but they’re also personal. So, back off!

Hate and anger often go side by side, because they’re close friends. If you hate someone, it’s probably because something they did or didn’t do angered you. If you’re angry with someone, then it’s because you hated something they did or didn’t do.

Hate has been seen throughout history to spur people on to do great ( and not-so-great) things. From heroes to villains, everyone has been seen being pushed forward by many other things, sure, but hate still reigns supreme.

 

Did you bust your ass and get that new job? Congrats, I’m sure you did it cos you love the prospect of being able to move out of your parent’s basement. You ALSO did it, cos you hated staying there. Did you finally lose that weight? Good on ya lad! I’m sure you hated needing to find the staff at the mall to sure where the Hippos R Us stores are located. But I’m just thrilled that you love your new beach body.

Even world leaders are powered by hate. Certain leaders and their hate for capitalism led them to do psychotic things. Leaders of other nations as well. Granted, the villains in the group often had less than noble and often barbaric goals, but that’s to us. To them? They were just goals, like you and I have.

Harness The Hate 

This is where it gets a little tricky though. The have to harness the hate properly. The line between “use my anger to accomplish greatness” and “bash this @#$%#$#%$#’s head in with a claw-hammer” is smaller than we think. So it’s easy to misuse the anger we feel towards something (and yes, someone).

Let’s use an earlier example, like the guy who’s stuck in his parent’s basement. Maybe they’re always on him about how he should “get a job” or “stop being a shame to the family name”. The WRONG way to harness that hate would be to yell back at his parents or sulk whenever they get on his case. The RIGHT way to harness it however, would be to get off his ass and find a job, so that his parents can no longer rag on him about being a pushover.

When it comes to dealing hate, or anger, the right way to go is always self-improvement. Sure you could get even, our jobless friend could easily yell his parents into submission, but to what end? It’s only a momentary victory. Or he could seek vengeance and pee on their bed or something, but that doesn’t solve anything either.

Now if he were to get a job and THEN pee on their bed, then well *shrugs* at least he can buy them a new one.

I guess the final conclusion is, let your anger drive you. Don’t let it consume you in  a way that all you accomplish is a good sulk and a sub-par bout of gossiping. Don’t let go if it either, remember it, record yourself sobbing, take a picture of yourself frowning, whatever you need to do. 

You have to catalog that hate. And every time you look at it, your instincts shouldn’t be to get even, it should  be to get better. 

Fuck Sensei. Get angry.

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Hey guys!

Sorry for the long wait, I haven't been able to be so consistent for a while now, I was half travelling and half being a couch potato. I just got a PS4, so I've been devoting most of my time towards learning to not suck at COD: Infinite Warfare.

I should be a bit more frequent now though, seeing as I've given up and resigned myself to populating the last 3 slots in the team (somebody's gotta do it, right?)

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy. 

Resteem till your Sensei sees it!

All images courtesy of Pixabay