peacewillow's perspective

there used to be an old adage that went “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”.

it was generally used when some not so nice person had teased, tormented or otherwise bullied you, albeit without physical contact.

of course, in reality, words do hurt, sometimes more than sticks and stones, but, unfortunately, another reality is that unhappy, mean, nasty, jerky people will probably always exist, and you need to accept that.

in today’s world, people are more likely to point the finger and scream “intolerance!” than they are to accept someone else’s right to have a different opinion than their own, forgetting another old adage that says “when you point your finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you”.

for the record, the definition of ‘tolerance’ is simply “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with”.

so, when you accuse someone else of being intolerant, chances are good that you, yourself, are being intolerant of them.

sucks, don’t it?

that’s not to say that real intolerance doesn’t exist, because it does.

true intolerance takes that extra step and attempts to wipe out whatever opinions, beliefs or behaviors they don’t agree with, and we see this happening every day in countries where people are sentenced to death for simply being gay, or believing in the wrong god.

however, it’s important to understand that, by definition, to tolerate something absolutely means that you don’t like it, and that’s okay, as long as you “allow the existence, occurrence or practice of it without interference”.

*(i would hope it goes without saying that we are not talking about behaviors that maliciously cause harm to any living creature)*

for instance, let’s go there.

gay couple goes to baker for wedding cake, only to have baker say he doesn’t believe in gay marriage.  what happens next?

ideally the gay couple would say “we’re sorry to hear that since we’ve been coming here for years, and we were really hoping to have one of your delicious cakes at our wedding, but no matter, we won’t be coming back and neither will any of our friends”, and that’s that.

as it stands, the baker didn’t try to poison them, or ‘convert’ them, he didn’t interfere with their ability to get married; he simply had differing beliefs than they did.

there are other bakers, and no good can come from trying to force someone else to see things your way.

which can be seen in the abortion debate quite acutely.

whether you believe abortion is murder or not is irrelevant.  it is a legal medical procedure and the only opinions that matter are those of the people directly involved.

but that doesn’t stop “well meaning” people from denying the choice to those who actually need to make it.

and, since we’re down the rabbit hole anyway, let’s talk about how intolerant most religions have become of each other….

but perhaps that’s a subject for another day….

what’s needed more than anything in today’s world is yet another old adage, slightly modified:  “let’s agree to disagree” on some things, while actively seeking compromise on others.

tolerance means respecting someone else’s right to be, along with their behavior, good or bad.

they have a right to be jerks…. respect that.

instead of answering their intolerance with your own, simply say “i’m sorry you feel that way, but i respect your right to feel it”.

you can ask if they’d like to talk about finding a compromise, but if not, calmly agree to disagree and let it go.

finally, just one more old adage that has personally helped me a lot thru-out my life:

“don’t sink to their level; make them come up to yours”.

grace, compassion, respect, compromise, tolerance….

that’s how you change the world.

peace begins with you.