It's been a long time since my last post and given the fact that I am bored right now there's a lot of random thoughts running above my head. Where do people get their bitterness? Why there are other people who's always bitter and why they are so bitter about random things? Please bore someone with this question.
I've got a lot of random ideas about this but still there's a lot of random question inside the bubble. Sigh.
So I took advantage of my boring time to do a little research about it. By the power of GOOGLE! YES!! I googled! Here are the facts where do they get their bitterness.
It answered all my question with a bobble head.
"The best revenge is living well", the best quote that I've read today.
Bitterness About Being Socially Misunderstood
People who have a past of being
misunderstood
or rejected for being different are sometimes quite bitter about it.
Their bitterness may be directed at a certain group of people, society
in general, the concept of socializing, the idea of having to change, or
specific activities such as going to parties or playing sports. My
opinion on bitterness is that while a bitter person's underlying
complaints may have some truth to them, the emotion itself is toxic and
harmful. No good really comes from feeling like that all the time.
Here are some of the negative effects of feeling bitter:
Bitter people just aren't as happy
When you're bitter, you're angry and resentful. Your mind keeps
dwelling on the ways you've been wronged in the past. You could be
having a great day, and then something will remind you of an old wound
and you'll be annoyed and lost in your head for the next three hours.
You get down at how life isn't fair. Obviously, feeling these negative
emotions all the time just isn't good for your day to day mood.
Bitter people aren't much fun to be around
Overall, bitter people aren't enjoyable company. They're prickly and
negative and moody. You never know when they're going to turn on you
for being just like 'one of them' and not 'understanding what they've
been through.' At any second they could go off on the same old rant
about all the ways they've been wronged. You can't hang out with
certain people when they're around because they might set off the bitter
person's baggage in some way.
They develop a mentality where they believe all their problems are the fault of one thing
There are guys out there who think that everything that goes wrong in
their lives is because women are evil and selfish. I've come across
self-described introverts who who blame all their problems on the fact
that extroverts don't understand them. Some people's complaints are
more abstract, like they'll dwell on how society is anti-intellectual.
These things become scapegoats. Sure, certain groups or problems in
society can cause people problems, but it's not realistic to think
they're at the root of every setback someone experiences.
They negatively stereotype and write off entire groups of people
If a bitter person feels they've been wronged by a member of a group
then they'll sometimes paint every last person in it as their enemy.
Even the people from that group who are friendly and on their side won't
be given a chance.
For example, jocks are the classic bully villains in high-school
movies. Are some jocks assholes? No doubt. But not every guy who
likes sports, or who wears baseball caps runs around stuffing people in
lockers. Most so-called jocks are regular, decent people who just like
to play football on the weekend. More and more you'll even meet guys
who seem like jocks at first glance, before they start going on about
how respected they are in their World of Warcraft guild. When you're
bitter, you don't see any of this. Everyone in a certain group is the
same to you.
They see what they want to see and hold certain groups to higher standards than others
Continuing the previous point: Part of being prejudiced is that you
look for information that agrees with what you already believe, and
ignore what doesn't. If you're at a bar and you see a fratty looking
guy doing something obnoxious, well that just goes to show that all
people in fraternities are loudmouth idiots. But you ignore the fifty
similar guys who are behaving themselves, or the people from other
subcultures who are being annoying in the same manner.
They unconsciously cause people to act exactly how they expect them to
If you're bitter towards certain types of people, you may
unconsciously act in ways that agitate them and cause them to be hostile
towards you, confirming your preconceptions. Like a more alternative
girl who resents fratty, pretty boy types may be really rude whenever
she's around them, and interpret their most harmless behavior in the
worst possible light. Naturally those kinds of guys likely won't be that
friendly to her in return, which plays right into her view that they're
all jerks who didn't understand people like her.
They develop an Us vs. Them mentality
Other people are the enemy. It's introverts vs. extroverts. The
shallow mainstream vs. the misunderstood intellectuals. The cool kids
vs. the uncool kids. Everything becomes black and white. You fight
little wars in your head. As this point and the others get at, once
you've decided a certain type of person is your foe, you'll tend to act
and think in ways that lock you into your bad relationship to them.
They make their decisions in reaction to what other people do
If someone is bitter about a certain group, they may make their
choices using the rule of, "I hate them, so whatever they are for, I
have to be against." Oh, everyone likes that band I enjoy now, I guess
I'm not going to listen to them any more. They feel like they're being
non-conformists, or fighting the system. I'm hardly the first person to
point out that they're ironically still letting their lives be
controlled by the people they dislike, rather than just doing whatever
makes them happy.
They avoid potentially good things because of the unpleasant associations they bring up
Your friends invite you to come over to watch a hockey game. It'll
probably be fun to spend time with them, but sports make negative
thoughts bubble to the surface of your brain, so you choose to avoid
anything that has to do with them. Or you meet someone you like, but
she has some of the mannerisms of the girls who used to pick on you in
high school so you don't pursue a friendship further. You can miss out
on a lot of fun things just because they're associated with something
you're bitter about.
They see changing themselves as selling out and 'letting them win'
People may give you a hard time or not appreciate your natural
personality. Society may be biased towards certain types of
individuals. Still, there may be ways you could change and grow that
would legitimately make your life fuller and happier.
When you're bitter you can be really stubborn about this. Changing
means conceding that the enemy was partially right. If changing means
becoming more like them in some way, you feel like you're selling out.
If you have an Us vs. Them attitude, it feels like they're 'winning'.
No one's keeping track of this stuff of course, but it all can seem very
important in your mind.
They stay in a rut, but think it's their noble destiny to be there
If your life isn't in the best place, being bitter can help keep you
there. You can end up painting this scenario in your mind where it's
good
that you are where you are. You're nobly sticking to your principles.
You haven't given up your values to seek success at a game you don't
even care about. You've held your ground where others have failed.
This thinking can take on a martyr tint to it as well, where you get
some sort of mental reward out of seeing yourself as a victim.
They achieve more than you normally would, out of a desire to 'show them'
Okay, so maybe bitterness has one positive side effect, even if it
doesn't have the healthiest underpinnings. Some bitter people do a lot
with their lives because they want to spite the people who picked on
them in high-school, or who didn't believe in them. What's the saying?
"The best revenge is living well"? What's that other cliche? That the
smart, unpopular kid works hard to become the next Bill Gates so at his
high-school reunion he can throw all his success in the faces of the
jerks who teased him, and who now all work in grocery stores? The only
drawback of this is that being successful probably won't give you the
satisfaction and feeling of revenge you want. No matter where you are
today, nothing will change the fact that when you were fourteen people
made fun of you. Still, if you're going to have bitterness affect you
in only one way, you'd want it to be this one.
So how do you get over your bitterness?
Overall, I don't have a ton of suggestions and I think it's easier
said than done. You can't just magically stop caring about legitimately
negative things that happened to you in the past, or which bother you
now. In a way it would be wrong to not care that you were once treated
unfairly. But still, you've got to take the edge off your feelings,
even if you never get rid of them entirely. Three things I can think of
are:
Expose yourself to the things you're bitter about
This isn't the easiest advice to take, but you may gain some relief
by exposing yourself to the things you feel bitter towards. Prejudice
is partially based on ignorance, right? Try to learn more about the
things you feel resentful towards, and try to give them a fair chance.
An example I've used elsewhere on the site is someone who's resentful
towards sports, explores them more, comes to find they're not all bad,
and lets go of some of his past baggage. Another example would be
someone who dislikes a certain type of person, gains more familiarity
with them, and can no longer view them in a stark, negative way.
Forgive people
Depending on how bad someone's past experiences were, this one may
not be for them. Forgiveness isn't about excusing or condoning
someone's actions, or deciding they didn't hurt you after all. It's
more about making a decision to not let your feelings have such a grip
on you any more.
Here's a personal example: I wasn't horribly bullied in high-school
at all, but there were one or two people who sometimes gave me a hard
time. For years afterward it still got under my skin, and I'd sometimes
daydream about how I could even the score if I ever ran into them on
the street. Then one day, and I'm not sure why, I just thought, "I've
got to let this go. So some guys were jerks to me when they were
fifteen. Man, I could be a dick at that age too. I'm sure they're
decent enough people these days. We all make mistakes, and where would
we be if no one ever gave us a second chance?... I forgive them." My
feelings were never the same after that. What they did just didn't
bother me any more. I still don't think what they did was right, but
there's no longer any anger there.
Sort out your other problems and live a good life
I already mentioned how the target of your bitterness can sometimes
act as a scapegoat for other problems in your life. You're really
unhappy about other things, but for some reason your mind wants to blame
it all on the fact that the world doesn't appreciate people who are
quiet and reserved, or whatnot. Similarly, when you're in a bad mood
for other reasons, your mind naturally gravitates towards other negative
thoughts. It's funny, I find when we're fairly happy we may
intellectually acknowledge that, say, our society is too materialistic,
but it won't emotionally bother us. But as soon as we're in a crappy
mood, suddenly we're grumpy about the same issue.
I've found that the more you can sort out your issues and get your
life to where you want it to be, the less old injustices get to you.
You may still acknowledge certain things as problems, but they don't
have the power to rankle you like they used to.
