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Hate

There is something about the way hate consumes you. It locks you in a state of mind that cuts out everything else around you. Your whole mind is focused on that object of hate, how it wronged you, trampled on you while sadistically benefiting from your pitiful state. As you recall event after event, suddenly very word and action it spouted had an intent to hurt you and bring you down. These events are interpreted to justify opinions you have about it. More events, more feelings of despair and humiliation and rage.

Your body is very tense. The breath is shallow and quick. Retribution! You mind scrambles for ideas to get back or ways in which you could have got back. You go back to the events and hypothesize alternate scenarios, scenarios that would have turned the tide and made him the victim. You imagine your victim cringing in pain, hiding his face in embarrassment and most importantly regretting having ever hurt you. You feel the triumph of having restored justice. But wait, not yet, What instead of this, I had done this? More scenarios. More feelings of elation.

But wait, what if it was not him who had wronged? What if it was me?

You pick up the phone. You carve out an apology message. That weight inside you lessens. The hate subsides. The heart softens. There is a sense of relief.

There is a sense of true triumph.
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