Love and Hate (Toastmaster BS#2)

“I hate you, Then I love you.. Then I hate you, then I love you more!”

“Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you. But when I hate you, it’s because I love you!”

Fellow toastmasters and guest good evening! Those lines are the thoughts of Celine Dion and Nat King Cole respectively. Love and hate are two distinct emotions which most people naturally possess and express these feelings in their own ways. We normally felt loved and be loved. On the other hand, we also desire to hate others and sometimes we find to confused ourselves. We merge hate and love. We hate the one we love and we love the one we hate.

There was a time when I got troubled about being in love with a person I really admired.

But I don’t exactly know if this is just an infatuation and not true love at all. Does hating this love will ever free me from the bondage of being in love? Or hating this love will instead push me through to prove that love finds no reason; that love has no eyes but love is not blind; it can see but it doesn’t mind?

To be honest, I never experienced true love yet for I had a feeling that it never and will never exist in me. Love… love… love… so vague... too complicated… so deep to fathom it’s true meaning. Only those who know how to love can understand what love means. Different people define love differently. Most of them define love according to the beat of their hearts, to the power of their thoughts, and to the learning of their own experiences.

The Bible says love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, or rude. The love of God to us is a perfect example for this. And my own definition of love is love itself. See! I am not really good how to define love. At some point of my life, love finds me but I used to hide on it. Not because I don’t want to be loved by someone but maybe because I am just afraid of the consequences of loving and being loved. What if one day, this love will run out from me? What if at the end of the day, this love will just cause me sleepless nights and breaks my heart? Sounds scary and I am not yet prepared for all of these. Maybe this is the reason why I tend to hate love once in a while. As the Christian teaching says, “Hate the sin but not the sinner”. So I tried to hate the love but not the lover. Sounds funny and weird! Yet, I can’t deny the fact that I later hate the person instead because of some reasons. It made me so guilty especially that the bible says “Do not hate your brother in your heart… Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. Indeed, as far as your heart is concerned, to hate is to murder. In other words, hating someone is no different that murdering them in your hearts”. Although it sounds harsh but it is exactly true. I don’t want to be a murderer! From then on, there was a vicissitude in my heart.

From the love I felt before, I then, desire to hate it because I was once a coward. But when I knew that love conquers all, I learned to love more.

Thus, it is no surprise that we all want love rather than hate. Hate leaves ugly scars but love leaves beautiful ones. Fellow toastmasters and guest, our life is too short to spend it hating but life is worth-fulfilling to spend it loving.

Good evening!