The World According to Yoda

"Fear leads to anger, Anger leads to hate, Hate leads to Suffering." -Yoda

The whole universe is transfixed by the latest incarnation of the Star Wars franchise, The Force Awakens. Don't worry, this is not a blog about the movie or anything related to a galaxy far, far away. Having grown up with the original three movies (which are actually now the middle three movies), I always loved the above-mentioned line mentioned in The Empire Strikes Back and I think its brilliant and witty and it espouses an excellent sentiment that applies to life no matter what planet a person is from.

When a person fears someone or something and the fear starts to take over, the person may become angry with and then do something drastic. Fear and anger are similar emotions. They often intertwine around each other but the fear usually leads to anger and the anger leads to action in order to eliminate the possibility of the fear becoming reality. We often fear what we don't know or understand because its easier to judge the unknown than to embrace it; we have a real problem with feeling uncomfortable.

Anger then leads to hate because if you become angry and can't stop feeling that emotion, you start to hate other things around you. It is rarely a sudden emotion that flashes and alerts everyone around you as to what is happening. Hate is methodical. It festers and boils and then comes out of hiding once a person has reached their limits.
Hate turns to suffering very quickly. Hating one someone could turn into a physical or emotional manifestation that causes you to act out. This will cause you to suffer as other people will not want to be around you.

Suffering destroys humanity because it lacks love and compassion and people walking around without compassion and empathy leads to us not realizing that other people are hurting, hence the suffering. Suffering is the logical conclusion of fear if we let fear get the best of us.

Fear and anger are similar emotions. They often intertwine each other but the fear usually leads to anger because the anger leads to action in order to eliminate the possibility of the fear becoming reality. Once anger sets in, it leads to suffering either due to revenge against an act caused by anger or it leads to suffering because negative emotions are by themselves cause suffering inside those who have it.

People often do not realize that when one suffers due to anger, it is poison for the spirit. It eliminates happiness, hope, and love. Without which, no kindness can grow or exist. But there are other emotions which have this pattern: envy, confusion, loss of control, and the like. We must strive to make it evident to ourselves exactly when we experience these things or we shall surely become victims of those things which can destroy us at the hands of another or worse, by our own hands.

So, please forgive the extreme nerdish advice. I hope it makes sense and I think it more than applies as we make our way through the holiday season.