Tolerating others

Tolerance

Some people are a great help, others are a wretched nuisance. How much nuisance are we prepared to tolerate before we say something or do something to combat it? How tolerant should we be? If someone is making a lot of noise it can test our tolerance. Opinions will differ. How much noise and how often is key. Once a year – someone celebrating a birthday or anniversary. Most will find that tolerable and acceptable. However far less of us will tolerate noise that disturbs us daily, particularly when it is for hours on end. Dogs barking. Music thumping. Shouting and screaming. This is the tolerance problem. All people can be a nuisance including you. How much lenience are your neighbours giving you. Are they being tolerant of you but you not of them? Are we looking at the situation from our point of view only? Find your own balance. Find your own level of tolerance. Be careful of those use you to fight their battles in the tolerance games.

The more tolerant we are of recklessness; the more people are hurt. Those not involved in the activity are the ones society might want to protect the most. The ones that are involved in the activity may call upon help from others when things go wrong. If a society is set up to help those in trouble, then those in that society may feel the need to be mindful of what they are doing. Walking in the wilds, ill equipped may lead to a search and rescue. That rescue will consume resources and put the rescuers in danger too. However, people from all walks of life will make mistakes. All of us make mistakes.

We can be tolerant of other people’s way of life, their religion and political beliefs. However, many of us fall into the trap of being tolerant of other people’s intolerance.

Your body is yours to deface, to work to death, to do what you like with. Paint your hair bright green if you feel the urge, for that is your business. However, not all of us are happy to see non-conformity. We do not tolerate deviation from societal norms; an intolerance of people deciding for themselves.

It will be nice to live by clear cut simple rules. One such rule might be: with tolerance in mind, don’t do anything that infringes, upsets or endangers anybody else. However, people will interpret a rule like this in different ways. People will ask for clarifications and examples. Exceptions will arise too, making the wording of the rule ever larger. From one sentence it soon expands to cover hundreds of pages or more. Some will think of the saying, “all rules are there to be broken”, and we can never cater for the countless permutations of a wonderful life. Nevertheless, maybe the basic premise remains, most try to avoid infringing too much on others. Most avoid upsetting others needlessly. Most take care not to endanger the lives of others.