There is a reason bitter people are bitter. They were not born that way. Nobody comes from their mother's womb with an aloe vera pup in their mouth ready to cultivate a bitter life. The bitterness children or adults have come from wounds inflicted on them by others or by tragic world circumstances.
Nobody sets out to mold their existence around misfortune, injustice, abuse and strife just so that they can end up becoming disciples of the Algea. Everyone starts out wanting to lead a happy life with the exception of those who suffer mental imbalances that draw them towards suffering or making others suffer.
Bitterness is not a character trait or a default human setting. It is not like black, brown, tall, short, beautiful or ugly. It is an emotional condition thus there isn't one group of people who can be accurately described as bitter just because of who they are. It takes much more to be bitter than just being labelled bitter. Nowadays the word bitter is used as a slur by many to describe those that they view as different from or lesser than themselves.
The reality is that some of those people you say are bitter just because you do not like them are leading very happy lives. Then there is the small matter of projection. You will find the same person that exhibits bitterness in their mode of speech and overall mien being the first ones to say that others are bitter. Projection makes it easy for others to look for negative traits in others instead of looking inwards and working on their own negative traits.
Passing judgement makes a lot of people feel better about themselves when they are in fact the ones with the problem. Add that to the fact that many humans have refused to use their own noggins to make decisions or construct opinions. Many people have decided to rely on some of the most injudicious and insipid minds that ever existed to think for them and make decisions for them about their own lives. That is why social media calls them followers whose job is to follow, like and camp on the timelines of those they view as teachers or influencers.
One thing that these personalities have even when they have very fallacious doctrines which are often very misleading is numbers. It is not by chance that people are likely to align themselves with bigger numbers rather than small ones. Social psychology explains this very well. Group polarization for example guarantees that people with like-minded opinions will reinforce each others' opinions regardless of whether their opinions are garbage.
Many people apply the heuristic of social proof in that the more people are doing something, the more it must be right. Couple that with binary thinking and you will often see two groups pitting themselves against one another: Christians versus pagans, slay queens versus housewives, blacks versus whites, men versus women and so on and so forth. Never mind that binary thinking is as lazy as it is limiting because the world is complex and not everything can be viewed like a coin.
Bitter is the to go to word nowadays especially when it comes to defending the louder group. The word bitter has been abused and devalued to the point that already desensitized beings often find themselves becoming even more desensitized towards those who are actually suffering. In the rush to label others as bitter just because they do not fit into their ideals, they have forgotten that there are people who are actually bitter and need to be treated with empathy. They have also forgotten that some of the people who are bitter have valid reasons for their bitterness and do not deserve to be mocked or shut down.
Take a situation where an anti feminist is attacking a feminist for example. The word that comes immediately after toxic will be bitter; followed by unmarried, sex starved, basic, dildo wielding, lonely, dog loving whore etc depending on the triteness or bias of the one doing the labelling. When it comes to conversations around racism, you will often hear racists refer to those who are affected by the racism as ungrateful, worthless, criminal minded bitter fools who need to go back to their continent or shut up. There are many more examples I could cite but my point is this:
Don't go using the word bitter as a slur thinking that you are denigrating other people's realities to feel better about yourself. Cliches are unoriginal as they are generalist. Independent thinkers do not behave that way. Only zombies and sheepish people do. Upon making an independent assessment and deciding that someone else is bitter, search within yourself and ask yourself why you are itching to throw in that "you are just a bitter..." into the conversation.
Are you saying it to hurt them, to shut them down or to put them back in their rightful place within the so called 'bitter' group or are you saying it because you are concerned and willing to help them navigate through their bitterness? Have you used the 'bittermeter' on yourself to discern if you are indeed the bitter one? Or are you blameless enough to pass judgement upon others for the sake of passing it? You know you might be the bitter one right? Now that you have told them that they are bitter and they have in fact owned their bitterness what do you do next? Do you laugh and say "I knew it", "Pambana na hali yako" or are you actually interested in finding out what is going on underneath it all or even presenting solutions for the same?
If you are really bitter, why are you that way? What happened? Are you navigating through your pain and working on yourself slowly or are you projecting your bitterness onto others? He who feels it knows it so I will not spend a lot of time on this part because everyone's emotions are valid. The healing process is as unique as it is timeless and nobody owes anyone political correctness when it comes to expressing their anger. My main points are in the other paragraphs. At the end of the day, we are all better if we can leave bitter behind; all of us. Bitterness is more than just a word though; one you are better off not throwing it around if it has got nothing to do with how you are feeling or you are just using it as a slur.
Have a sweet Saturday meanwhile friends. Drink some aloe vera and up your vibes.
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