50 dead and 53 injured. The largest mass shooting in our nation’s history, a record which, unfortunately, is becoming harder to break with each passing year. There have been five mass shootings since 2010 — a span of only six years — resulting in 115 deaths. That’s 115 lives gone, cut short by unwarranted, unjustifiable violence. In a nation that still claims to be the greatest on Earth, that is unacceptable.

I’m not going to pretend I know what needs to be done in the wake of this tragedy. I can point my finger at any number of potential factors, from inadequate gun control to a too relaxed approach towards religious extremism, but I won’t. I’m no more aware of how to fix this problem than the people running this country and I’m not going to pretend that I am. While I may not know what course of action to take, I will make a statement on what we should keep in mind while looking for a solution to this growing issue. We, as both a nation and as individuals, cannot allow ourselves to act out of hatred.

Hatred is what caused this disaster. Whether that hatred came from an individual or a terrorist group doesn’t matter. Lives were taken because a person or persons could not tolerate the way that someone else lived, even though the victims had done nothing harmful or provoking. It was this intolerance, this bigotry, this baseless hatred that allowed a human being to murder his fellow human beings.

It’s hard not to hate. We want to hate the people like Omar Mateen who hurt us because we know they deserve it. We know that anyone who would slaughter innocents deserves the worst punishments that this world and any possible afterlife has to offer. We must refrain from hating, not for the sakes of those who we would hate, but for our own sakes. Hatred corrupts us. It allows us to stop seeing people as people and only as objects on which to project our fears and anger. If we succumb to the same cowardly, ignorant urges that drove this man to such atrocious actions, we become no better than he was.

So what I ask of you is this: don’t let the emotions that have been stirred by this catastrophe to drag you down to the same level as those who hurt you. Mourn the dead, comfort those who lost loved ones, search for a way to end this recurring nightmare that our country can’t seem to wake up from, but do not allow yourself to give into hatred. We are better than that. We must be better than that if we ever hope to end this senseless violence.

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”

― Maya Angelou

“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.”

― George Bernard Shaw

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”

― Booker T. Washington

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

― Gautama Buddha