Hatred is indeed a slippery slope.

Consider how often friendship, love, or even a mere acquaintance can devolve into dislike. Or even hatred. And how rare it is for us to stop our dislike—and hatred—once we have begun.

Hatred is like the proverbial slippery slope: easy to slide down but incredibly difficult to climb back up.

As we begin to hate, we justify our feelings and become convinced we are right to feel as we do. The other person has done something terrible—they have wronged us. I have done nothing—just an innocent party. The hatred swells, and over time we become attached to it. To stop this hating, we will need to let go of our attachment to it

.

How?

Admit that our hate is unwarranted. Period! And even if, in most people's eyes, it is warranted, we would be wrong to give in to hate. As ordinary beings, we neither like giving up attachments nor admitting we are wrong.

Isn’t it just more practical not to reinforce such self-destructive habits in the first place?

Pain will always be with us. . . . (Part 1)

In the face of unfolding destiny,

we hold the future in our hands.

It can be very difficult to decide what to do when so much of what we encounter in life is grey and so little is black and white. 

When faced with myriad choices, and none seem to clearly be the right one, we need to remind ourselves that we will end up doing what is destined to happen. And because of this, we may think that we do not have an active choice in the outcome. Unpleasantness? Merriment? It was destined to happen!

We are wrong. The part we play in the current unfolding destiny will go towards creating our own future destiny and is thus vitally important.

For instance, (1) did I hurt the person because I gave in to my anger and didn’t care what I said, and so the event unfolded as destined? 

Or, (2) no matter how much I cared and tried to act wisely, my efforts failed. The event unfolded as destined: I hurt the person. 

If I do the first, I’m walking the path of more suffering. If I do the second, I am on the path of reducing my future suffering.