When we moved to Charlotte we knew, this time, we would have to downsize a lot. Like most Americans try as we might, we tend to accumulate “stuff.” Invariably there are boxes just full of “stuff.” One box made it from move to move never being opened, just moved from house to house. Before we moved to Charlotte, we finally opened the box, and sure enough it was full of just stuff, much of it just representing old disappointments or relationships long gone. It was time I threw it all away, just like I needed to throw away certain feelings about my past. It was time to let them go as well. I just didn’t need to pack on my journey any bitter pills or clothes of disappointment. There would be no room for them in my new home.
Speaking of things I discarded, long ago I discarded a word from my vocabulary. My wife and children know I don’t want to ever hear it used or spoken. No, it’s not the word you might expect from a child of the South. That word left long ago as well. The word I am referring is “hate.” I dislike even striking the keys in the order necessary to spell it out. I read recently that the difference between hating and loving is that where loving someone is to be fulfilled and enriched by the experience, to hate somebody is to be diminished and drained by it. Lovers, by losing themselves in their loving, find themselves, become themselves. Haters simply lose themselves. Theirs is the ultimately consuming passion.
I you find hate in your closet or attic, throw it out. There is no room for it in your new home.
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