God is Infinite and all powerful. Tap this omnipotent source, with confidence.

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” ~ Maya Angelou

“Certain people, in their eagerness to construct a world no external threat can penetrate build exaggeratedly high defense against the outside world, against new people, new places, and different experiences and leave their own world stripped bare. It is there that bitterness begins irrevocable work.” ~ Paulo Coelho,

“There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.” ~ Joseph Heller

“Have you been at a time felt bitter in life?


I know this is quite a direct and bold question; however, it takes so much to feel bitterness in life. It could be caused by a thankless or poorly compensated job, a one-sided relationship, an unhealthy environment, an uncaring and unprotective home or the like. This bitterness can cause sorrow and depression. It makes a person dwell only on the negatives and it is a battle so difficult to endure that without a sign of hope, can cause a person to end his life.

If you feel that you are unhappy and that unhappiness is staying with you for sometime then evaluate yourself now. Why are you unhappy? What are the results of your unhappiness? What are the things that can make you happy? How can you get out from this unhappiness? Who can help you out from this unhappiness?

It is very important to understand why you are unhappy because until you come to terms the reasons, only then you would know where and how to start to combat them. Due to your unhappiness, what other areas in life are affected? Are you bitter with your job? Is your relationship with your boyfriend or spouse affected by this bitterness? Is the unhappiness brought by your unhealthy job is worth over your relationship? Who can help you out? Oftentimes the battle is too much to handle by ourselves. You have to ask for help. Express what you feel to whoever you can trust. It would be better if you can speak with your parents, or your siblings or you best friend. However, my message for this part goes more to the other parties. If you know someone who is unhappy, be selfless enough to lend your time and help. Some people jokingly talk about suicide and we take it as a joke, but it should never be taken lightly. A talk about ending one’s life is always and is always a cry for help.

Now let me tell you a story that illustrates about how you should view bitterness:
Once a young man seeking solution for the bitterness in his life came to a revered teacher, who was seated under a tree near a beautiful lake, and asked for the solution for his unhappiness. After some minutes of conversation the old master kindly instructed the visitor to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink a few mouthfuls. “How does it taste?” the teacher asked. “Awful,” said the apprentice after he had spat out the revolting liquid a few paces away. The teacher chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the youngster swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man told him, “Now drink from the lake.”

As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked him again, “How does it taste?” “Good!” he replied. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the Master. “No,” said the young man. The Master sat beside the troubled youth, took his hands, and said, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the level of ‘pain we taste’ depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake. And you can become a lake where you broaden your outlook; when you stop looking only at yourself and your own miseries. Look at life as a whole and the many things without which you would not be what you are today – your friends, family, hobbies, nature around you. When you are confronted with a problem, you see only the problem and ruminate over it endlessly which only makes the situation more tragic. Think of previous instances when things were better. Look at all the blessings that God has filled your life with about which you never give a thought. The young man left, and his viewpoint on his problems had totally changed.

Today's society encourages people to think of themselves as victims. The implication is that we're not responsible for anything that happens to us. And in many cases--such as crime, disability, or discrimination--we aren't responsible. But the internet has been widened to include almost everyone. When we expect the government or possessions or medications to solve all our problems, we're setting ourselves up for further pain. They're not the answer. Becoming a "professional victim" is an exhausting job. Bad things happen to all of us. We can either wallow in our victim-hood, or we can shake it off and work to make the best of our life. Avoiding bitterness opens your heart for happiness. It changes your mindset to see the good instead of the bad. Unfortunately, there are some benefits to being bitter--if you can call them benefits. You get a lot of sympathy. People may pamper you because life has been unfair to you. You get a lot of attention because you've been mistreated.

All of us have a tendency to like attention. But this is not a positive, growth-oriented kind of attention. Rather, it chains us to our past so we can't enjoy our present or feel optimistic about our future. We don't want to "get over it" because we demand justice. We think God should make some sort of compensation for the way we've been treated. I don't believe that avoiding bitterness is humanly possible. But that's okay, because it is possible with the help of God. Some of life's battles are too big to win on our own. We can only be victorious when we ask God to fight for us. The good news is that God is all-powerful. You have to want to move on. God can't force you to make that decision, but once you do, he'll give you all the help you need to do it.

Everyone faces bitterness in life. Remember no one escapes it. Defeating bitterness is a daily battle that will go on for the rest of your life. There's always the opportunity to slip back. New bad things keep happening. You may have believed all your life that you're just a bad luck person.

It's time to try something different now to get different results. Bitterness doesn't work. It's like having a rock in your shoe and complaining how much it hurts and how wrong it is to have a rock in your shoe when no one else does.

Try something different, like stopping and taking the rock out of your shoe! The rock is your own bitterness. That's what's ruining your journey. You can only change your attitude and turn things around with God's help. Ask him to help you start focusing on all the positive things in your life instead of the negative. Trust God for your justice, even if it has to happen in the next life. Give imperfect people a break. Realize that their goal in life isn't to make you miserable, even if that's how it has seemed. Don't let yourself be a doormat; but on the other hand, don't see every unintentional slight as an act of betrayal. You want to live large. You want a joy-filled, enthusiastic, exciting life. You want to experience God's love, the love of other people, and the satisfaction that we're doing something worthwhile.

Can you see how avoiding bitterness is necessary to do all that? You can become bigger than bitterness. Avoiding bitterness is the only way you can live the life God wants you to live. My advice:

Tell your problems how big your God Is. When something unpleasant happens, you can treat yourself to an hour or a day or even a week's outrage about it, but then drop it and move on. Together, you and God can do this. Believe me, I know this because He and I have done it many times, following relationship breakups, job layoffs, rejection, and even throwing away the thought of committing suicide which I have contemplated many times before. If I can do it, then you can too. Avoiding bitterness is one of the wisest decisions you'll ever make. It's the only way to find the happiness you so desperately want. Never compare yourself negatively with others. 

Remember that you are a unique person and if you have the faith, God will provide what you need – not only the strength to face bitterness but overcome it. When you have a pain in your life, put it in front of GOD - then it will surely lessen. Do not put it in front of yourself – as you cannot see beyond it. God is Infinite and all powerful. Tap this omnipotent source, with confidence.”