An eye patch to life

tol·er·ate/ˈtäləˌrāt/

Verb:

Allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference. Accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.

Tolerance has always been a moral value which has been thought to most of us when young. It's a good moral value because it teaches us how to deal with everyday issues and adapt to their existence. As good as it may be, is it truly the best value to uphold? Just look at the words used to define it. Seems rather negative,no? Having to allow the existence of something you dislike. Having to endure something with forbearance.

for·bear/fərˈbe(ə)r/

Verb:

Politely or patiently restrain an impulse to do something; refrain: "the boy forbore from touching anything". Refrain from doing or using (something): "Rebecca could not forbear a smile".

Imagine one of your loved ones has some sort of habit which has been a part of them since they were very young. Let's say an interest in heavy metal music which you disagree with because of the horrendous noise it makes. Being the good person that you are, you tolerate this particular interest of his and carry on with life. You would hear him blaring the distasteful music day in and day out but you choose not to do anything about it because you tell yourself, that it is his interest and you should not interfere. Depending on your level of patience it would only be a matter of time before you lose it and scold your loved one, leading to conflict. This is but, just a simple taste of the drawbacks of tolerance.

Lets look into a case of something more significant. Imagine you have a loved one who constantly smokes(I'm sure majority of you do). I'm sure most of us here would disagree with the habit of smoking for obvious reasons which I do not have to state. Let's say that you tolerate this habit because your loved one needs the cigarettes because of stress at work or the fact that he has been smoking since God knows when and it has been accepted as a norm. Unlike the former case, this one is easier to tolerate. Smokers can do their smoking away from others while people such as housemates, neighbors or family members have to deal with loud music. In my very own opinion I think that nowadays smoking is regarded as more socially acceptable compared to distasteful music. What is the outcome of tolerating smoking? Well, diabetes, cancer, bla bla bla death. Let's leave it at that.

Wants more examples of the shortcomings of tolerance? Roomate snoring, outcome=lack of sleep. Friend's choice of clothing, outcome=she ends up getting embarrassed in public. Partner has a religion which is conflicting to yours, outcome=parents do not approve of relationship. Screams coming from your neighbor's house daily, outcome=turns out the wife was being abused and by the time you found out it was too late. I can go on all night, but I'm sure you guys got the picture.

So is tolerance really that bad? My verdict? Nope. Tolerance works fine when used properly. But mostly it's for short term cases. Tolerance starts back firing when used for prolonged issues which will eventually lead to further problems. So how do we deal with daily issues? Simple, through acceptance and reconciliation.  Only when we learn how to accept the people around us for who they are do we truly get things going. But acceptance is not something which just comes easy, we have to learn to accept others. Acceptance is achieved when we have the mindset that a particular habit is part of the person and that we shouldn't change it for our own sake. You see, the difference between acceptance and tolerance is that in the former we learn how to love something about someone, hence eliminating all negative feelings regarding certain aspects of an individual. In the case of the latter, we have to suffer through "bearing with an issue", "enduring something" and allowing something to continue existing despite your utter hate for it. So back to the topic, why can't we just accept? Why does someone have to give up something because of you? It's kinda selfish, no? Why don't you give up your inability to accept? Perhaps you can even join the fun others are having too. Think about it.

Acceptance however can only go so far. It is not for all situations. In certain cases when the habits or aspects of others may cause harm to themselves or others, that's when we try and re conciliate the problem. Resolve the problem through talking it out, proper planning and moral support. You see, when dealing with problems, we can't just let them slide, we have to confront them. We can't just simply close an eye to a problem and hope that it will remedy itself because we are well aware that most things in life don't work that way. We have to first learn to accept the fact that there are reasons why people do what they do and if a something about a loved one is completely unacceptable, we reconcile. Taking action both mentally and physically, way better than taking none at all.