You’re Not a Bad Person and Nobody Hates You
Unless you intentionally withhold kindness, compassion, empathy, and hurt/harm others.
Everybody has their own beliefs, values, and habits. No two people think absolutely, perfectly alike, or in sync. Opinions are like assholes, so everybody has one (unlike assholes they frequently have more than one).
Concepts of good and bad are fluid and ever-evolving. Today’s good guy is tomorrow’s villain and vice versa. People change. The pendulum swings in both directions.
It’s very easy to get caught up in all the hype, anger, and especially the fear. Various leaders, so-called leaders, demagogues, celebrities, and the like will pull you in every direction you can imagine, and likely some you can’t. It’s mind-boggling, really.
Do you sometimes think you’re a bad person or that everybody hates you because of your beliefs and values? If so, then I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that you’re not a bad person and nobody hates you.
How do I know this?
If you question the impression you’re making on others, question how they feel about you, and care about what that looks like? Then you’re not a bad person and nobody hates you for your beliefs and values.
You self-examine. You consider what, if any, impression you make or have made. In other words, you care about other people.
But, someone might argue, isn’t that narcissistic? Isn’t this all about you and what you do? No. Because narcissists don’t give a shit about what anyone else believes or values.
A bad person couldn’t care less if someone thinks they’re bad. They can’t be bothered to examine how their beliefs or values impact anyone other than themselves. A bad person doesn’t give a damn about you, just themselves.
Okay, no, I can’t honestly say that nobody hates you. That’s because I am not in the heart, mind, or soul of anyone else out there. But I can tell you that nobody hates you specifically for your values and beliefs. At least, not unless you actively work to force them on anyone who doesn’t agree or desire to have them imposed.
That’s the real issue. Individual people are not inherently bad people or tend to be hated. However, when they willingly discard kindness, compassion, and empathy and knowingly inflict harm on others, that’s a whole other story.
You’re not a bad person and nobody hates you, unless…
Unless you knowingly hurt someone. When you withhold kindness, compassion, and empathy because someone might be different than you in some way. If you willfully, with full cognizance and awareness choose to support hurtful, hateful, spiteful, unhinged people. Then you might be a bad person.
Let’s talk about a huge gap in the United States. Conservative vs Liberal. These tend to both be extremes. Most people have both conservative and liberal beliefs, values, and even habits.
Politics? You can be fiscally conservative and socially liberal at the same time. Religion? You can be a devout worshipper of god and believe in science at the same time. Morality? You can be personally monogamous and straight and support polyamorous LGBTQA+ people and their right to exist at the same time.
The point is that unless you knowingly, willfully are unkind, uncompassionate, unempathetic, hateful, and doing or allowing harm and hurt to happen to others – you’re not a bad person.
This involves a degree of malice of forethought. So long as you consider how who you are and what you do – and the impact it might have on others – you’re not a bad person.
Hate is a bit more challenging. But by and large, you’ll only be hated if you actively, willfully do something hateful, hurtful, harmful, and awful to another person.
When you question how others might feel about you, and care about what that is, you’re probably not a bad person and nobody hates you for your beliefs and values.
The keyword here, however, is probably.
No definites and no absolutes
You are the only one inside your head, heart, and soul. Likewise, I’m the only one inside my head, heart, and soul. I can’t be in the head, heart, or soul of anyone apart from me. You can’t be in the head, heart, or soul of anyone apart from you.
As obvious as I think this is, lots of people don’t recognize or acknowledge it. A great many people even think they can control others, make them choose only how they do, and force them to live with only their beliefs and values.
That doesn’t work because we’re not the same. What’s more, the definites and absolutes of the world are extremes. The vast majority of people, places, and things exist between them.
Even people who have similar religious backgrounds hold different beliefs and values. This applies to people with similar political backgrounds, moral standings, sexualities, genders, and any other “ism” you can think of. Wondrous variety, many colors, different approaches, and on and on.
The energy that makes up the whole of the universe is the only thing utterly similar in all. The base energy is always the same from the tiniest subatomic particle to the largest galaxy in the cosmos. After that, the similarities spread out and increase in being dissimilar.
You’re not a bad person unless you choose to be. If you were, you’d not care about it nor how anyone outside of you perceives it. A truly bad person tends to think they’re right. So the question of “Am I a bad person?” isn’t even a consideration to or for them.
You’re empowered to control this
The hypothetical and rhetorical “they” love to use our differences to keep us off balance. That’s because it’s the only way they can control you or me at all. Unless you intentionally withhold kindness, compassion, empathy, and hurt/harm others, you’re not a bad person. And if you are withholding kindness, compassion, and empathy – and hurting/harming others – why? What do you gain from this?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and presume that you desire to receive kindness, compassion, and empathy from others. Do you believe you can get it if you withhold it or don’t give it? You can’t and you won’t.
The power to be who you desire to be is all on you. You are thus empowered, and via active conscious awareness – mindfulness – can choose what that looks like. Those choices and decisions will inform you of what kind of a person you truly are. You’re not a bad person unless you choose to be. You’re empowered, if you don’t like who, what, where, how, and why you are, to change. That might or might not change the impressions of others, but it will inform all that makes you, you, and give you control over what is utterly yours.
One last note – if any of this is tied to a belief in lack, scarcity, and/or insufficiency, take a closer look, Most of these are utterly false. There’s more than enough of everything intangible, and the alternatives are always available for the tangibles.
Seeing that you’re not a bad person isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you only wonder if you were a bad person and hated if you care, you can make any necessary changes if you dislike what you see. Knowing that you care about the impression you make on others via your values and beliefs, you can decide how to be the best person you can be with empathy, compassion, and kindness within and without.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and forty-seventh (547) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.
Follow me here!
