How To Use Love as Fuel (Instead of Hate)
Aim to prove your supporters right, not your haters wrong.
My daily morning routine consists of listening to a podcast over a mug of steaming coffee. It is a routine I have come to enjoy. It relaxes me.
Listening to something thought-provoking with the morning sun on my back and the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air is straight-up therapeutic. It does wonders for my mental health.
That particular morning, I lucked out.
“Conor Mcgregor and Tony Robbins Interview 2019”
The greatest motivational speaker of all-time interviewing the most phenomenal athlete of my generation? Yes, please! I couldn’t click on the video fast enough.
When I was listening to it, however, for some peculiar reason this quote stood out.
“Your lack of commitment is an insult to the people who believe in you.”— Conor McGregor
I couldn’t put a finger on it at that time, but hearing Conor say that gave me pause. It made me put my mug down and think.
Now, a few months later, contemplation has condensed into understanding.
It dawned on me that I’m the kind of person who likes to use negative emotions as fuel. I’ve been using my doubters to motivate myself so often that my supporters don’t even cross my mind anymore.
And that’s very sad.
Hate Is Dirty Fuel, But Fuel Nonetheless
“Anger can keep a man warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things.”
– Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
I’m a pretty driven person.
I used to be a competitive mixed martial artist, and now I run a business solely using my iPhone, among other endeavours.
As the Japanese saying goes, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Doing things my way, being a non-conformist — these traits led to me picking up my fair share of haters.
Instead of letting the naysayers stifle my vision and cramp my style, I put them in the back of my mind. I used them as motivation.
I used them as fuel.
I want to prove my haters wrong.
This unconsciously became my mantra.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with finding a positive use for our darker emotions. In my book, it’s better than being crippled by negativity. Sometimes, you’ve got to use whatever’s on hand to keep going.
The world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Being able to derive a net positive out of negativity is some Philosopher Stone level genius. I consider it an actual, valuable life skill.
The problem begins when you exclusively use darker emotions as fuel. You run the risk of becoming a twisted being solely driven by hate.
You run the risk of crossing over to the Dark Side.
Hate Creates “The Feedback Loop From Hell”
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”— Buddhaghosa
I was introduced to this phrase when I read Mark Manson’s hilarious and surprisingly deep, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
The Feedback Loop From Hell works like this.
You want to achieve something, and doubters being what they doubt that you can do it. You hear them, get pissed and become even more determined to achieve your goal. You work extra hard and eventually achieve success.
The doubters disparage this accomplishment as well. They invent reasons why your successes are a fluke. So you set your eyes on the next goal, and the doubters start doubting again, and you once again use their negativity as motivation.
Ad Nauseum.
Doesn’t this sound terrible?
Sure, you achieve your goals, but the trade-off is being caught in an endless cycle of suffering. That is the antithesis of Nirvana.
The irony is you now becoming driven by hate. You wind up being reliant on the doubters and cynics you so despise because hate is your driving force, the fuel that keeps you going!
It becomes a disastrous negative feedback loop.
I never quite fathomed how skewed my mentality was until that Conor quote gave me pause.
I thought it was perfectly normal — I was even proud of the fact that I could make good use of my naysayers.
To break out of this feedback loop from hell, you have to learn how to use positivity as motivation.
To embrace love instead of hate.
Love Is Limitless
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
— I Corinthians 13: 7–8a
I was so lost in the sauce I never even stopped to consider my supporters.
For years, I had no conscious intention to prove people right. To make my loved ones proud of me. When it came to motivation, I was driven by the need to prove my haters wrong.
And this is the crux of the article, dear reader.
Instead of saying “I want to prove my haters wrong”, change your mantra to:
I want to prove my supporters right.
This little perspective shift changed my life.
You see, love literally has the opposite effect of the feedback loop from hell. It goes like this:
I want to achieve something, and no matter how far-out it sounds, my supporters, my real supporters, have my back through thick and thin. I work hard and when I eventually achieve my goals I receive praise and adulation. We celebrate. Group hugs, beer, and fireworks all around.
It’s a great feeling, and I’d like to feel it again, so I set my eyes on the next goal, and they cheer me on again. Ad Nauseum.
Doesn’t this sound great?
Instead of being all pissed off with a chip on my shoulder, I now work on my dreams with a pep in my step.
Instead of picturing the doubters and naysayers, I keep the supportive faces of my family and friends in my mind. They help me to overcome any obstacle gracefully, with a smile.
It’s the ultimate positive feedback loop.
Balance
Now, I’m not saying that you should treat all negative emotions like the bogeyman and perpetually flee from them— that’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s possible to use negativity to propel yourself forward, and some of the greatest men in history also had the darkest pasts.
The thing is hate can only fuel you so far before it starts to destroy you. Like Carl Jung said:
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
There comes a time where you have to choose. Continue dancing gracefully with your demons, and spiral slowly but ever so surely to hell, or exorcise them and let love take over your life.
It’s useful to think of hate as diesel. Useful in a pinch, but to be used as sparingly as possible. The long-term consequences, both to the car and to the environment, is simply not worth it.
Love is clean energy. Never diminished and ever renewable. Like the fabled self-filling mead horns of Valhalla, love never runs out. Drink from it, and the cup runneth over.
Remember, hate is an acceptable form of fuel in the short run, but love is a far better alternative.
Adopt love instead, and watch your cup runneth over.
Thanks for reading my story. :)
