Before Love and Hate

Photo by Max Ravier

Staring at this prompt inviting bloggers to list a few things I love or hate, I found myself at a loss. I wasn’t ready to dig through the past to pick up moments I once loved or hated, nor am I willing to hedge my future peace for this exercise. What remains then is the present continuous — but I just posted my list of eleven things that make me happy, so that door is closed for now. [Linked here]

Love or hate — I’ve stopped entertaining rumination about extreme emotions these days. If my disasters upset me or my triumphs lift me too high, then, like Kipling warned, they are both imposters I no longer want to trust. That realization keeps me steady more often than not.

Instead of revisiting old emotions for the sake of this prompt, I find myself wondering how and why we categorise experiences as love or hate in the first place. Some we announce loudly, some we bury quietly, and yet in both cases their roots run deeper than we notice.

When I look inward, the forces that still tug at my emotions are memory, fear, and desire.

Memory shapes reactions long before I am aware of it happening. A familiar fragrance softens me because it carries home, and a place can still unsettle me because it holds an old echo. Much of what I feel today is simply the past walking alongside me.

Fear arrives unannounced and shifts how I read the world. It freezes thought, magnifies loss, and convinces me that vulnerability is somehow dangerous. Some feelings grow sharper simply because fear is speaking a little louder underneath.

Desire quietly pulls the strings too, guiding me toward meaning, belonging, and validation. The haves and the have-nots inside me directly map to those same needs.

And then there are the forces outside us that keep stirring things up — society’s noise through social media, society’s expectations in daily life, and society’s unpredictable encounters that catch us off guard. Each one nudges the emotional compass decisively.

I no longer wish to drag the past into today, nor do I want tomorrow’s shadows troubling me before they appear. The aspiration is to live in the present within emotional guardrails that protect me from both inner and outer triggers. Maybe the real strength lies in mindful living — and keeping a healthy distance from the forces that rush to categorise or box our life events into love, hate, or anything else.

It isn’t easy — it’s a challenging trail — and I’m just an ordinary person learning as I go. Let’s take this path one step at a time toward mindful living.