Love and hate are emotions. Love is a positive emotion and hate is a negative one. They are opposites, like two sides of a coin. We learn both in life. Love and hate are extremes but there are other emotions in between.

Hate is caused by fear, but what causes fear itself? We fear things we don’t know, don’t understand or don’t feel, and that means we fear things we have no knowledge of. Ultimately, hate is caused by a lack of knowledge.

To free ourselves from hate and fear we have to learn about the things we hate. Bring to mind something that you hated but began to like as soon as you learned more about it. The process is always the same. As you learn more, you slowly begin to change. Hate subsides and you go through other negative emotions like disliking, unaccepting and disagreeing. Those emotions are not as strong as hate. If you continue the process of learning, you will eventually get to the point of accepting or even liking something that previously caused your hate. In some cases you may even grow to love it. Yes, that was the case of tomato soup that I hated as a child and now it is one of my favorites.

This shows a process of going from negative emotions to positive ones. Sometimes in life we might experience the opposite process when we love something but in due course, as we discover the truth, we begin to hate it. That is also a learning process. When we reach the hate stage, we have to continue to learn, perhaps by looking at the thing or the matter from another angle. Always realize that that which you hate has a right to exist.

Emotions are good since they signal where we are in the process of learning. In short, hate means we know nothing, love means we know a lot but that is still not the end of learning. Yes, it is not the end. In fact, when you know everything about a particular thing or matter, you become free from emotions and they are no longer needed. They have already helped you to reach a full understanding.

Change is good, change brings new energy, brings enthusiasm and a new desire to live. Change brings opportunities to learn new things, skills, and qualities. Changing is not always easy due to our ignorance, laziness, fear, etc. So, what to do to change our attitude toward the change itself?

Who wants to lose a good job for a less paid one? Who wants to move to a new unknown town, who wants to loose old friends, who wants to change a habit? Some changes are perceived as bad, at least at the beginning and only years later we may realize how great these lessons were. We perceive changes as good when we see immediate benefits and as bad when we have no idea what good it will bring to our life. Only time will show that every change is good so we may as well always look at change as good. What a great attitude this is, right from the start accepting all changes in life, no time wasted for wining, crying or swearing. Just that will make life so much easier!

We can also prepare for changes. Look for signs in your life. The most basic one is boredom. When you feel bored, when you use the word “bored”, it shows that you need change and that the change is approaching. How often we say about our work that it is so boring and then when we lose it, we complain. When you feel bored, make changes yourself and don’t wait for them to happen. When your friends are plain boring people, find a new circle of friends. If you stick to old friends but the time has come for new ones, life surely will kick you out from that circle and the process might be quite painful. Why? Well, because on your own, you would never do it and only suffering can and will force you to do that. Life will arrange for you to get tired of your old friends. They may start gossiping about you or do some other things. You will get frustrated and unhappy and in the end leave them. You could have done that without all that suffering if you made the change earlier. Too bad we are so attached to all the things we know…