So as you may or may not know, I find music to be incredibly influential on mental health. It’s almost as if listening to a certain song can make or break your entire day. So what I want to talk about today is the emotion of hate, particularly because of a line from a song that I enjoy. The line is from the song We Are Young by Hollywood Undead. The line goes, “We wave this flag of hatred, but you’re the one who made it”. This brings up a good point for discussion. You see, no one is born with hated running through their veins. I’m not even really sure that we are born knowing how to hate. The point being, hatred is a learned emotion, we are taught how to hate. Now, I’m not sure if you agree with me or not, but stick with me. The first emotion that we learn to comprehend, is joy. As we learn most, if not all, of our emotions from our parents, joy is usually the first one. Of course this is my opinion, but let me explain. Normally, our parents are incredibly happy that we enter this world, and as children are sponges during their early years, absorbing all we can from our parents, we first learn to experience joy because it’s what we are around the most.

I bring up this point, because I feel that there is a very large amount of hatred in the world today. I can understand some of it, but when it comes to things like sexism and racism, I am not really sure why people still feel this way. Now, as not to trigger anyone, I’ll be keeping most of my opinions to myself. Though, that’s just what they are, opinions, which everyone is allowed to have their own. Of course that doesn’t mean that my opinions are right, but then again, neither are yours. We all form our opinions based on the information available to us at that particular time.

Let me be 100% honest with you, there was a point in time that I would have considered myself to be a racist. Please don’t start hating me right off the bat, finish reading, and let me explain. I’ll start off with, I am no longer biased based on someone’s skin color. The reason being, as I grew older, I gained more information. I quickly learned that being racist is wrong, and so I adapted. There are two reasons that I was racist in the first place. One, being that (believe it or not) being racist was very popular in my town during a particular set of years. Two, my father is a racist, and I (when I was younger) wanted to emulate my father. Now, I am very glad that I “grew out of” this phase, once I learned that I was in the wrong, I quickly changed myself. I want to make sure that you understand, it is wrong to hate someone based on something that they cannot change. Things like their skin color, their gender, their height, their sexual orientation, etc.

There seems to be a lot of hatred still in the world today. Granted, my generation, the millennials, are changing this little by little. Yet, I cannot comprehend why. I mean I’m not even sure why I was so filled with hate during my younger years. Hatred, I feel, is such an awful emotion. It takes so much energy, yet what does it give us in return? Nothing. It is a waste of an emotion. So now, other than hating my father, I try my best to only judge people on how good, or bad, of a person they are. I mean if your a jerk, I’ll treat you like a jerk. But if you’re a decent human being, like we’re supposed to be, then I’ll treat you as such. I like to think that I’ve evolved for the better over the years.

The point that I’m trying to make, is that hatred is 99% of the time, a detriment to your mental health. I know that it’s difficult, especially for us, to control emotions. But I want you to try your best not to hate anyone, I mean unless they deserve it. Because like I said, hate takes and takes from us, but doesn’t really offer anything in return. It saps your energy, which could be better focused on self care. Plus, love is just a much more rewarding emotion. So love your fellow human beings. It’s easier, and it feels better. From my mind to yours, this is Alan Wolfgang, signing off.