“Differences lead to envy, and envy leads to hate. “ The basic rule of thumb since the beginning of time contains simple words, yet carries on throughout time. Love and hate have coexisted since the dawn of mankind, yet hate seems to overrule love. The human nature, to conquer problems and succeed in life, causes distress in the general public. When one succeeds, another tends to feel as if they “failed,” which creates the feeling of envy. When a person has to end a relationship with someone, they tend to feel jealousy towards the people with successful relationships. People fight over money and are willing to kill each other over a few dollars just to buy a simple materialistic item. Indefinitely, envy, jealousy, and greed all carry each other hand in hand and ultimately return back to hatred.

Though in the past, hate spread verbally from person to person, a new form of communication spawned and gave birth to a new wave of hate. The Internet opened the doors to the world to help connect the world a make it easier to contact people, yet certain individuals take advantage of this global communication network and use it to hate on a global scale. Through chat rooms, websites, instant messaging, e-mail, blogs, even commercial business, people “bash” on each other. Some may make the claim it is merely “Social Darwinism,” which is “Survival of the fittest,” but would it really be survival if one is purposely destroying the peaceful state of mind of a person who won’t defend themselves? Of course not, it is simply “removing the competition,” to make life easier for yourself.

Cyber bullying

The media also throws itself into the equation. Magazines, television shows, newspapers, and any other form of media content causes hate amongst its viewers. Not all forms of media do so, but most tend to lean towards topics focused on teenagers. Fashion, looks, cliques, and even sexuality get thrown into a massive jumble of conforming ideas, which in turn get thrown to the teenage society. Males and females alike share the sting of peer pressure and the need to fit in, and give into the ideals that are fed to them. Perhaps one form of media says that you’re beautiful no matter what anyone says, yet another denounces people and concludes that everyone is ugly. The ideals that one person is better or more beautiful than another person fills the minds of confused adolescents and eventually creates a scene in which hate arises. People feel better than everyone else and start to put them down, to raise their self-esteem further. Most might say its “cool” or “fun” to destroy another person’s state of mind, but the receiving end of the insults take it to heart.

Depression and suicide rule the schools and students tend to get put down more and more. Stress from school further develops their depression to the point of breaking and grades drop. Students tend to use verbal abuse to put people down, such as:

“Oh you’re ugly.”

“Ugh. Stop talking to me, you’re making me stupider.”

“I can’t believe you’d wear something like that!”

“Go kill yourself.”

“You’re going to get nowhere in life.”

“Don’t buy from that company, they aren’t professional and therefore, have bad goods.”

These are only a few examples of different things people say to others to destroy their self-esteem. Instant gratification comes from verbally abusing someone and dropping their self-esteem. Though it may make someone feel better to be the one dishing out the insults, no one ever wants to be on the other side of the “teeter-totter.” As one side goes up, the other plummets to the ground.

However, from the standpoint of a company, “competition” plays a large role. Because our country has a capitalistic economy style, the government doesn’t involve itself in the business dealt between companies. Companies thrive on success, so naturally they would want to expose certain things about their competition to gain more profit. Sometimes known as “mudslinging,” companies dive deep into negative campaigning and attempt to create a bad name for their opponents. The consequence for negative campaigning, however, would be that your company would receive a bad name as well.

In the end, hate doesn’t get anyone anywhere. So let’s spread the love! Tell people you appreciate them and they do good things. Give compliments and listen when people are in pain. Help out when someone needs a helping hand. Spreading love is a lot harder than spreading hate, but it pays off in the end.