Are You a Hater or a Lover? Take the Test

We all share this planet together, and if we divided the world into two groups, lovers and haters, which would you be? Are you a hater or a lover?

This is an interesting project because most haters see themselves as lovers. So, that means the self-proclaimed lovers are actually haters? It’s a little confusing, right?

While it may difficult to see yourself as a hater if you think of yourself as a lover, it’s not that hard for others who take a glance at your social media postings, or overhear a conversation you have with your friends.

Take the HATER or LOVER Test

The test is in three parts.

Hater or Lover Test Part 1

How Do You Feel?

Review how many times a day you feel love, and how many times you feel anything else but love. One tick for each feeling. You can earn 2 extra points for feeling love when you express yourself when you are feeling love emotions by using the word “love” in your expression, either spoken or typed-out (emojis, reshares, or memes are not eligible for extra credit, though they may count as 1 point if they made you feel love in the sharing of them, not 2 points for liking and sharing).

Remember, this is how you feel inside. This is where you will rack up the most love points that others may not be aware of (except others are more likely to notice your extra points). Think about accumulating more extra points.

Hater or Lover Test Part 2

How Do You Post?

Take a look at your social media posts. Many posts may be neutral, neither positive nor negative, no love or negative energetic impact, so no points either way here. Positive posts may not feel like “love” so they do not count as love. Any negative posts (you know how you feel when you posted them), they are counted as hater points. Love posts get one-point, negative posts get one point for the hater category.

Extra points: One point for each interaction. Likes or emojis count as 1 extra point, comments count as 2 extra points, and you get 4 extra lover points for each comment by someone else on your post which includes the word “love,” 5 extra points for each share of a love-post (also 5 points in the hater category for each negative share).

Hater or Lover Test Part 3

How Do You Express Love Face to Face?

In your daily interaction with others in a face to face communication, how often do you expressly convey your heartfelt love for someone else to their face? You get five points for doing so. Do more of that.

By the way, you can count face to face chats in this category for the full 5 points, while you earn 3 points for telephonic (live audio, no video) love communications.

Any other communication which is more negative than positive counts as 1 point for each expression for the hater category. (These can rack up points rapidly, so try to practice caution here.)

Are You a Hater or a Lover? Results

Total up your daily points and if you’ve got more hater points than lover points, you’re a hater. If you’ve got more lover points than hater, then you’re a lover.

How are you feeling now?

Are you a hater or a lover?

If you’re not happy with your results, you can start changing your results now.

If you’re doing that, I am a huge fan of you.

I really love you. (This counts as one for me.)

Your Worst Enemy is Your Best Friend

What if your worst enemy was your best friend? Yes, adversity leads to growth, change, even evolutionary expansion, but what if that person who brings you the most grief and trauma really was, above all else, truly your best friend in the universe?

I know, the idea wreaks havoc with your brain, at first, as it does not compute, but bear with me.

A quick review of your life ‘til now will affirm that all those rough spots in your life led you to become the person you are today. And the person you are, while still in the process of growth and expansion, is sacredly magnificent in so many ways. Yet, you would not be so incredible if it weren’t for the hardship and trauma you suffered at the hands of your worst enemy.

Your worst enemy, that person you despise and love to hate more than anyone else played a key role in making you who you are today.

While you have grown, evolved as a human being, and expanded in consciousness, loving your enemy is the key to the doorway which leads to the next level awaiting you on the other side.

This could be too much to consider at this moment in time but just think about putting the idea on the shelf for review later.

While suspending disbelief for a moment while you ponder the idea of your worst enemy being your best friend, contemplate the idea of there being much more to this life than meets the eye.

What if there was a cosmic speakeasy where you hung out with your friends on the other side before you came to this earth?

What if this was the place where you and your friends plotted out the lives and experiences you would have on your next journey?

What if you had decided to add a little more excitement to this life and wanted to face demons and dragons of unimaginable proportions where you knew you would arrive victorious on the other side?

What if, your best friend on the other side, the personage who loves and cares for you more than anyone else, saw the potential for harm and offered to play the part of the “evil one” in this incarnation, to make sure your limits were pushed, but willing to protect that delicate balance, so that you could go through the experience and emerge the victor?

What if there were those from the other side who have entered into sacred contracts to be the focus of all your angst and hatred, all the while honoring your sacredness and loving you all the way?

Now, in this midst of this life, this person may not even understand why they are causing you so much trouble or hating on you as they do. They just cannot help themselves. And there is no way they could conceive of or understand if they were playing out their role in your story under sacred contract prior to their arrival on this planet.

But when you hook up again on the other side you will have a blast recalling the adventures and laughing about the drama as it played out.

Just something to think about.

It’s not an idea you need to adopt for any reason (this whole plotting of your journey before you arrived here) but the part about loving your enemy? That’s for real.

This is the key that unlocks the door, where everything you love and desire waits for you on the other side.

Think about that.

When you can love your worst enemy with all your heart, you discover your enemy really is your best friend.

Dare to Be You

I have friends who have dared to share their innermost feelings in publicly accessible formats. Dare to be you. It takes an enormous amount of courage, to be honest, open, and incredibly vulnerable in an effort help prevent others from suffering your fate(s), even at the risk of opening yourself up to ridicule, spectacle, and attacks by the haters scouring the waves looking for their next victim.

Unless you are a psychopath, sociopath, or narcissist, you can imagine the strength it would take for someone who has been victimized to muster the wherewithal to make a stand for him or her self, maybe against his or her predatory abuser, only to be further victimized and abused by haters and trolls for doing so.

Why would anyone want to do such a thing?

Haters are gonna hate because there’s a basic flaw in the human condition, one that is constantly comparing ourselves to everyone else and judging everyone else at the slightest hint of not seeing eye to eye with us. Unfortunately, when we’re feeling a little down, nothing makes us feel better than seeing someone else suffer more than we are. It makes us feel a little better, even if it means we must knock someone else down a few notches ourselves.

Part of the latest evolution among human is moving away from the barbarian mindset of judgment and the tendency to see ourselves as superior to other human beings in some way.

We have this proclivity to judge others based on their beliefs. If they believe a thing to be true which we also believe, we find it easier to accept them. On the other hand, if they believe something which we cannot conceive of, we judge them. We might try to convince them to think the way we do, which only makes them defensive, driving us further apart, so we reject them.

Yet there is room for all things to be true, just as they are in the truth continuum. The truth continuum is vast and includes all things, all beliefs, all ideas and imaginations, real and unreal, all possibilities and impossibilities.

If you think back only five years, you will likely conclude that even you have learned something in these recent years which has changed the way you believed about something, likely many things. Life and knowledge are progressive and what is true today, may not be true tomorrow.

Then, on a deeper level, those things which we fail to face that are hidden deep within ourselves, are the things we hate to see in others, and it becomes our mission to stay as far as we can away from them, to in effect keep ourselves safe from we cannot face ourselves. This is the function of your shadow self.

This letting go of judgment lends itself to the acceptance of others just as they are, wherever they are, realizing we are all in this (human) experience together. Not only that, but we’re all intrinsically connected and essentially “one” in our shared experience of life, while each of us maintains our own unique individuality.

From this more evolved perspective, all things are good, and we believe that everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, and we can compassionately concede that if we’d lived the life of that person, we’d believe the same way in this time and space. We would also defend another person’s right to believe whatever is true for them and realize that truth is an endless continuum.

Still, here we are in the midst of this emerging growth among the human populous, some of us growing and expanding into the higher evolved beings that we are becoming, and others not so much.

For a while (it could take years) the barbarians will continue to walk among us, and as much as they might be unlike us, they are still a part of us, as we are represented in this day and age, of humanity.

So, there will be haters, who will challenge, belittle, and attack you at every opportunity. Don’t let them stand between what you were called to do, or to prevent you from embracing all your special qualities, or make a stand for what you believe in.

Just know this, you are always right, and there is nothing wrong with you. Dare to be you. And consider this, there is nothing wrong with them. It just is what it is, and we’re all doing the best we can with what we have.

And I love you, just the way you are.

Love Being a Hater

You know what I’m talking about, some people just love being a hater. They get a thrill out of putting other people down, making them feel miserable, or going as far as doing their best to destroy the lives of others.

Why would someone love being a hater?

Haters Just Wanna Have Fun

Believe it or not, haters feel their best when they’re putting other people down. To them, this is the ultimate form of entertainment. The worse they can make someone else feel, the better they feel and the more satisfaction they attain from dishing out their own special brand of destruction.

It’s not uncommon for such a person to suffer from a dark or malicious form of Narcissism, helping them to remain somewhat isolated from the pain they cause and enabling them to extract a sense of joy from hurting others. They are the center of the universe and others are just players for their amusement performing their roles in the hater’s sick drama.

What’s so great about being a hater?

You might wonder why would a hater love destroying others so much? What do they get out of it?

In most cases, you wouldn’t even notice a hater if he or she was not dishing up hot, steaming serving of hate on a regular basis, they would just silently and insignificantly disappear into the background of life. They have discovered that they can easily garner the attention of others and not be taken for granted by making others feel bad. When they spread their hate and discontentment, the spotlight is refocused upon them, enhancing their perception of their own significance in a world where they would otherwise be invisible.

Often, very early in life, they discovered that negative attention was better than no attention, and they carried this perception of life into adulthood.

The haters who love hating feel as though they command the respect of their peers (or potential victims), although this is misinterpreted as respect because in real life others are fearful (not respectful) that they might be the next target of his or her pending venomous attack.

You see this type of abuse in authority figures who lord over others whose lives they can destroy on a whim, whether he or she is in politics, law enforcement, a teacher, a parent, or any of the other positions in life which imbues them with power over others.

Any challenge of their power or authority is followed by their quick and brutal display of power with little regard to how devastating their actions might be to their victims.

This sense of power is the lifeblood of the ravenous hater. Having the ability to hold the lives of others in your hands is almost god-like. The power-hungry hater thrives in wielding the power to be judge, jury, and executioner in an instant.

The craftiest and most stealthy power-hungry haters use misdirection and deception to destroy the lives of others employing a more passive-aggressive method of disseminating their destructive payloads. These are the most difficult hate-lovers to identify, maintaining a meek exterior appearance all the while, making people feel threatened or awkward by claiming their selfless concern was misinterpreted as an insult or threat.

Haters love the acquisition of material goods or financial reward for spreading hate. You see these haters with everything from small businesses to corporate giants who benefit from bad-mouthing and putting down other businesses, organizations, or competitors who might be a threat to their own success.

Anyone can now afford to join the ranks of the most comprehensive lovers of hate due to the readily accessible power of the Internet which can be easily adopted as a method to destroy others quickly, effectively, and inexpensively.

Keep in mind, there are many types of haters who hate for all kinds of reasons. While this may not apply to all haters, this represents those haters who love being a hater and receive the most enthusiastic enjoyment from spreading the hate and hating others.

Dealing With Haters

Pretty much no matter what you do there are going to be haters waiting in the wings ready to pounce on you for any misstep you might make, and in lieu of having a mistake to focus upon, they’ll pick words and phrases, spin them out of context and try to attack you from a factious battle base. It can’t help but leave you wondering what to do about dealing with haters?

First off, you must realize that haters gonna hate. It’s a fact of life, for whatever reason, there are a lot of people who get off on putting others down, and the more violently they exert their hate, or make someone feel bad, angry, breakdown, or cry, the better it makes them feel about themselves. Just being aware that everything you do is being watched and someone is waiting to insult you or smack you down if you try to do something good, or attempt to make the world a better place.

People who are miserable and can see little good in this life, will do anything to prevent it from getting better. They’ve resigned themselves to live in a world of hate and find safety and security in keeping it that way because they’ve acclimatized themselves to this kind of life. To start doing crazy things, like being honest, open, vulnerable, trusting, and loving, and to have the nerve to propagate such things threaten the existence of the world they’ve come to know. So, they will attack you and try to thwart your efforts, or slow your roll when you’re trying to live a better life, love and share love, or make the world a better place in order to strengthen the world they call “home.”

Oh, and as you might have noticed, they’re so eager to hate, they’re ready to spring into flurries of hate anytime you try to do anything, Just try to change laundry detergent, change your wardrobe, move to a different town, paint your living room, look for a new career, apply to be accepted by a college, get pregnant, consider not eating meat, losing weight, or donating money to charity, etc… No matter what you do, the haters are watching and waiting.

Now that you know they are there as an inevitable part of life (at the moment),

Don’t Let Haters Stop You

I’ve worked with people who wanted to do something good but were afraid to take action for fear of being attacked by haters. They may have known, seen, heard, or read about someone whose life was destroyed by haters, and they are afraid of “putting themselves out there” to be attacked by the haters (as the haters are laughing in the sidelines).

Fear is a powerful weapon, and it is used in every level of society to control us. Especially, in the case of imaginary fear. You haven’t even been attacked, yet, and you’re letting the fear of something that might happen in the future rob you from the blessing of standing your ground and sharing your heart and truth.

If that wasn’t enough, each of you carries insecurities which fuel an inner hater, which can taunt you and make you feel like you’re unworthy, too inexperienced, or a greater target for haters than you might actually be. You inner hater does this to protect you, in the same manner, that other haters try to protect the worlds they live in.

Of course, the next level includes actually being attacked by haters. The hate can seem unfair, be unpleasant, and if you let it get to you, it might make you feel like picking up your toys, calling it a day, and going home. You could let the haters have the upper hand, and you could quit fulfilling your mission, singing your song, or speaking your message. Don’t let haters stop you.

Be Courageous

It takes a certain amount of courage and commitment to be willing to step out in faith, knowing that people may not like what you have to say, especially if it is contrary to the status quo.

You have an obligation to yourself, and possibly to your higher power, to do your thing or fulfill your destiny. This is more about doing what is true to you than it is about what other people think or say about what you do.

Pick yourself up by your bootstraps, get together a team of supporters, or go it alone, but build up enough courage to go forth and put your best foot forward. The world needs you desperately and is waiting to hear your voice.

And know this: If you’re attracting haters, this is a sure indication that you’re doing a good job. You’re on the right track, running the risk of achieving your highest and best, and making the world a better place. Whatever you’re doing… do more of that.

Don’t Be a Hater

Oh, yeah, and if you don’t want people to hate on you, don’t hate on anyone else. I know on one hand this sounds silly, but on the other, it’s tragically serious.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone complain about haters hating them, then responding (whether in private behind the scenes or publicly) by spewing hate about the hatemongers. They’re so caught up in the moment and riled up emotionally, that they can’t even see how hypocritical it might be to do such a thing.

The rule is simple: If you don’t want to attract haters, don’t be a hater.

Practice tolerance and be a loving up-lifter. Edify those who have the courage to put themselves out there and risk everything for what they believe, even if it’s contrary to what you believe. Why? Because don’t you expect the same respect? That’s why. You gotta give what you want to receive.

Dealing With Haters

If you’ve been the recipient of a public attack by a violent hater, the standard protocol is to not take it seriously (I know that can be a tall order, sometimes), especially if the attack was personal, and you feel like your integrity or reputation might be at stake.

You are under no obligation to respond to an irrational hater (no matter how rational they may present themselves on the surface). Ignoring their accusations or remarks is completely acceptable, and while doing so,

Take the high road, understanding that the individual who is attacking you is not that different from you, and if you were living in that person’s shoes, you might feel compelled to strike out in a similar way.

Don’t get pompous over it, be compassionate and realize we are all just doing the best we can with what we have, and,

Bless them.

Yes, I said it. I know it harkens back to Romans 12:14’s, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse,” and Proverbs 15:1’s “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger,” but these are responses are solid, tested and true answers for haters. Haters are nothing new, they just get a lot more press these days.

If you do take the approach of replying with love and kindness (without being condescending) you might be surprised to find that your compassion, love, and kindness was enough to turn a hater into a supporter.

It’s been known to happen.

It’s Just Not Fair Haters Gonna Hate

Someone, somewhere at some time planted the idea that life should be fair, and when we recognize that something is not fair, we utter the words, “But that’s not fair.” As if fairness was a default setting, and due to some breach of security an unfairness has slipped through the cracks.

When you feel as though you’ve been treated unfairly, something wells up inside you that makes you resistant to the idea. You do not like being treated unfairly. In fact, the whole idea of any unfairness just gnaws away at everything you believe about what is right and what is wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. When you’re treated unfairly, it goes against everything you believe in and you get angry.

The rejection of any idea of unfairness usually can be traced back to unfairness you experienced as a child. This is where the idea of the injustice of being treated unfairly is rooted, and the angst felt by a child is much more fierce than one might expect from an adult. Depending on where your feelings about being treated unfairly originate, the younger you were when you came across the idea, the more negative feeling you will have about it in the present day.

When you are criticized, you experience a sort of flashback, triggering those early emotions and you feel escalated negative emotion. After all, you’ve worked hard to accomplish this – or that – and how dare some disrespectful ingrate insult all your efforts to bring this thing to this point. And you get pissed because of this injustice hurled by an unrestricted hater. “It’s not right. I worked so hard…”

Although, it is right; it is the nature of the world we live in. When a hater releases an outburst of hate, it’s actually a good sign indicating you are doing extremely well. Haters are what they are, and they will spew their hatred at any opportunity, and if a particular target might seem to over-react, or get their feelings hurt, all the better for the hater. That’s what they want. In order for them to feel good, they must make someone else suffer and feel bad.

When you are experiencing a level above average in anything you do, the haters start taking notice. This is the cue haters are looking for, always on the lookout for someone’s success, indicating to them that it is their job to knock them down a few pegs. If you are having a great deal of success or happiness, the haters start swarming. It’s nothing new, just a fact of life on planet earth.

There are reasons to expect opposition, such as

  • Seeing things from a different point of view
  • Differing ideas about values or morality
  • Everyone struggles with their own inner demons
  • Someone may act out on a stereotypical basis
  • They might be jealous of your success
  • They could be responding to a miscommunication
  • They might be misinterpreting or spinning your story
  • Maybe they just hate everything at every opportunity

Haters are not hard to find, they proliferate the Internet and social media lurking and looking for opportunities to spread their hatred far and wide, while they cower safely behind their technology. You can bet, if you’re doing something good, the haters are taking notice as you show up as a new blip on their radar.

Don’t look at it as being treated unfairly; instead try to think of it as a compliment.

Haters gonna hate. It’s a fact of life.

Everyone is entitled t their own point of view, and just as you have freedom of expression, so do the haters. There is no right or wrong in opposing points of view. It just is what it is.

Some people are going to love you and the things that you do, others… Well, not so much.

When you make a stand for something you believe in and you are disrespected or attacked by haters, it’s okay. Understand that their hatred has nothing to do with you. It is only the haters doing the only thing they know how to do, that makes them feel a little better. This is the pay off for them. They are in a constant state of pain and misery. Hurting someone else’s feelings is the only way they know how to get some relief because making someone feel bad makes them feel better. That’s all they know. Can you blame them?

Stomping Baby Turtles

Put yourself in their shoes. If you were in a constant state of pain, and the only way you could find relief from the pain was to stomp on a baby turtle, if the pain was great enough, you might be compelled to do it. And if you did and it made the pain subside, you might be more inclined to do it again. After a while, you may discover that if you stomped on many of them, not only would the pain subside, but you might even feel exhilarated and happy.

Likewise, when a hater strikes out against you, it really has nothing to do with you, it’s all about them, looking for ways to make themselves feel a little better. It’s the only thing they know of that gives them a sense of relief.

And what if you, too, are a hater?

If you are trying to get people to see a thing from your point of view, even insisting on it, aren’t you doing the same thing? If you don’t like someone the way they are, do you try to get them to change? If so, you might be a clandestine hater (though more subtle in your delivery).

Just because you see something from a different point of view does not make you right or someone else wrong. Be confident enough to share from your perspective, but allow them to see it from theirs. Don’t try to change their mind. Only they can do that. Simply humbly plant a seed and let it go. It just is what it is.

Practicing tolerance, not judging people, allowing them to be what they are, honoring their right to believe whatever they want to, and understanding that we’re all doing the best we can with what we have, will keep you on track to a brighter future.