Life Lesson #3 Life is Too Short

3. "Life is too short to waste time hating anyone."

When I think about the amount of time I have wasted in my life having feelings of despair and hatred I want to cringe. I am not saying that I have animosity towards people but through out my marriage there was an assault on my self esteem and the impact is continually felt in my inability to truly grasp how others feel about me.

Elie Wiesel teaches that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Think about it for a moment. What does that mean and how can understanding this concept help you heal? Divorce is ugly and most often is a result of one party walking away, for whatever reason, leaving another heartbroken or hurt. Both emotions illicit hate and the longer you dwell, the longer you obsess and fall to pieces. Stephen Covey would call that a “lose” – “lose” situation, so what can we do, if anything, to avoid or hurry along this part of a process that, whether we like it or not, has to be a factor of the equation?

Understand the concept of hate and note its effect on others by what hate might just do to you. Here’s the difference between the people everyone surrounds themselves with and the ones that are avoided. This underlying insanity of emotion that seeps through our conversations and taints all that we do will most definitely affect our relationships with others… always. You choose what envelopes you; it’s your choice and the longer you hold on the more a part of you it becomes. The more, each day, you lose yourself in the anger that controls you and not letting go will have one final and lasting effect. You will be lost.

How can we turn this to the proverbial Covey “win”- “win”? By simply understanding that life is indeed too short to waste time hating anyone. I have been and seen circumstances where severe abuse has been indentified and I have seen these amazing people forgive. The reverse end of the atonement is essential to the well being of someone recovering from divorce. Yes, they hurt you. Yes, they seem unrepentant, but as long as you hold on to the anger and pain, the abuse continues but it is at your hands not theirs. Once you let go you learn indifference and they no longer control your heart or your hurt and you start to heal. I know this. l live it everyday. I cannot begin to tell you just how truly wonderful life can become once you are indifferent and you let go.

I will always acknowledge that at one time I did indeed love my ex husband. I even loved him through the divorce but now, as the indifference has settled in, I know I no longer feel any love towards him. I harbor no ill toward feelings or distain, mostly, I am sad. That sadness, however, doesn’t bring any other emotions intot conflict. We are over, we have moved on, his relationships with his children are his to own and whatever he may or may not do has no consequence to my existence.

This is how I know I am at the end of my healing. I know my heart is indeed ready to twitter pâté for another. My issues now lie in the concern of my last child. His heart was broken at the disregard afforded him and he needs to know, that for now, he’s the man in my life. Sure I date, sure I twitter pâté, but for now, it’s at his request to keep it slow and steady and acclimate him to the moving on of my life. He’s still young and needy and for now, those needs come first…but only for now. He will soon have to accept that I deserve and need happiness too. The funny thing is, he loves watching me re enter the dating scene, and he gets the biggest kick out of it. I, on the other hand, just feel like I am going to throw up all the time.

So once again, let me restate this important life lesson. LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO WASTE TIME HATING ANYONE, that means ANYONE. Letting go is the Zen of the healing after divorce. Do it… do it now!