Really Extreme Dislike

Hate is such an ugly word, a stong word. I'm sure we've all heard that before (and if you haven't, now you have). But it really is. "To disklike instensely or passionaltely; to feel extreme aversion or hostility toward." And when I use it, I typically feel this sense of anger towards whatever I'm using "hate" to describe, cold weather, tea that burns my mouth, reckless drivers, hearing my neighbors playing guitar and singing while I'm attempting to sleep. I get ANGRY and annoyed and frustrated and the only thing I can think about is how must I HATE THAT ___ (fill in the blank here)! And that leads to me being an unhappy and not-fun person.

I'm thinking about this because last night, I did hear my neighbors. A LOT. I should probably preface this little story with this: I don't like my neighbors. Ironic because much of my job is helping students learn how to be good neighbors. Everything started off fine; they were nice, quiet, introduced themselves. Good neighbors even if they did have a band, I couldn't hear them playing in my bedroom. Then the only female living in the house moved out and things started to get louder. Last semester, I spent 80% (a made up but fairly accurate statistic) of my nights sleeping in my guest room because the person sharing a bedroom wall with me watched TV to fall asleep. And during the day. And in the mornings. And basically ALL THE TIME. And it was LOUD. Then there was the loudly whining dog they would leave alone for hours at a time. Or they would be at home and let it whine. And the time one of their guests walked into my house. There was other stuff too but that's not the focus of this post.

Last night, it started about 8:30, loud talking, chatting, some music playing, etc. The usual. Then the guitar playing began. I made it through some DVR and prepared for bed, still listening to wall music I didn't want to hear. I tried closing all my doors and turning on my fan but I could still hear it. I moved my stuff (high maintenance sleeper, remember?) to the guest room. Door closed, fan on and then the singing started. I thought "I HATE MY NEIGHBORS!" and then that was all I could hear, them being loud. I was so angry that even after they quieted down, I still thought I could hear them, like I developed super-sonic hearing and could hear them breathing. I was SO ANGRY.

While on the way to work this morning, tired from my night of angry sleep, I thought "HATE" again when a rude Jeep cut me off. And then I finally thought "what's the use?" I mean, I'm already tired so why waste the energy I do have on being angry at things I can't change. Why dislike something "passionately" when I can direct that towards something positive? Why foster this "extreme hostility," so much so that there's no room in there for anything positive? So I tried some deep breathing (it was hard because the air was real cold and I was drinking hot tea) and just carried on about my day. Of course, it totally helped that I picked a good lane and passed her later when she wasn't paying attention to the road (don't text and drive people!). Moral of the story/post: I'm trying to avoid using the word hate.