Slow down, have the intelligence to let hatred go, and live life. 

You run into lots of different attitudes in the martial arts (and out of it), most are extremely positive, but some extremely hateful. While all of us would prefer the positive, unfortunately there are those that just prefer to hate.
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Hate is an emotion that gives us a feeling of intense hostility and aversion, usually deriving from fear, anger, or a sense of injury. It is extreme dislike or disgust. Extreme hatred can inspire violence, whether physically or online.
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It is normal to have hateful feelings occasionally. From time to time I’m sure everyone has said; “I hate this…..…”. But most of the time this is a fleeting emotion in the moment, perhaps born out of frustration.
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The opposite of hate is mental and emotional detachment. Hatred creates an attachment to the thing or person. It is an intense repulsion which falsely inflates the ego. It can make you feel very superior and self-righteous against the thing or person who is hated, often then blaming others for your hate, which only results in more pain.
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In the martial arts (and in society in general), hatred is something we can do without. It seems to manifest itself in differences between styles, schools, and individuals who believe they are invincible, the best, the strongest, or they know better.
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Hatred has no place in the martial arts. Haters are not happy people; they have to build themselves up by tearing others down. People who are always negatively commenting about others should be avoided because they’ll do the same to you behind YOUR back. They can’t be trusted and they will use you as a scapegoat.
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“A child sits playing with building blocks. He builds them up and knocks them down. Builds them up. And knocks them down. Fascinated, he reflects on his capacity to destroy the very thing he’s created. Then begins again.”
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Hatred is a response to fear – fear of the unknown, fear of humiliation, fear of powerlessness – but sometimes it’s calculated, willful, gleeful even.
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Some of these people are creative and enthusiastic. But faced with frustration, faced with people they can’t control, faced with all the things that go wrong in their lives, there’s a part of them that wants to take revenge, to destroy everything and everyone…. To hate!
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“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately… and see if I could not learn what it had to teach.” Henry David Thoreau
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Thoreau desired to learn what life had to teach him. He moved to the woods to experience a purposeful life. Prioritizing inner peace, and building that priority time into his days, so that any action he took came from a place of calmness.
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Take time to focus on the experience of being alive, rather than being compulsive…. rather than ‘knocking down the blocks’…. Slow down, have the intelligence to let hatred go, and live life. ??
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