As a continuation of thought process on tolerance, here comes the next post on it.
How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these - George Washington Carver
Why it is so, where it is rooted from?
This is about one of my friend. With his permission I am sharing this story.
He is very special from his childhood because of the fact that he is the only child of his parents many years after their marriage. He also enjoyed being in limelight even in neighborhood. He is having a habit of eating in a special plate (made in silver) which has three partitions. He will eat the food, if all three portions of it is filled with dishes he likes. He will never touch the plate even if one portion of the plate has a dish he did not like. Most of the dishes he didn’t like, so whenever they are cooking they will make a separate effort to cook for him. If sometime they couldn’t make it, he will never touch the plate filled with the dish he didn’t like.
Now he has grown up and working in an reputed company after hopping many companies. When I met him sometime back he shared the problem he is having in office. He don’t like People
- Who are having different opinion than him
- Who argues with him and win
- Who orders/guides him to do his work
- Who make fun on him
And the list grows, its not only that he didn’t like them. If anyone of them are near by he couldn’t be normal. He is getting restless and tensed. He also shouts at people on whom he thinks he could do so. When it comes to superiors he couldn’t do anything. He hates to go to office. He couldn’t concentrate on anything else. He forgets to pay his house rent for more than 2 months, so he got a notice from his house owner. He couldn’t stay in any company for more than 7 to 9 months, because of his habit of intolerance.
Basically he wasn’t having tolerance. Which I feel is rooted from the habits fostered by his parents. When I told him my findings and roots of his habit, he was astonished. So if we are not careful in responding to our kids it could lead to some greater disasters in later age of the kid like this.
So how my friend has developed tolerance now, that is what we are going to see now
We cannot learn real patience and tolerance from a guru or a friend. They can be practiced only when we come in contact with someone who creates unpleasant experiences. According to Shantideva, enemies are really good for us as we can learn a lot from them and build our inner strength – Dalai Lama
So I asked my friend to always be near the colleague by whom he gets irritated most. Asked him to maintain a notebook to write what are all he felt when he was near that colleague . He was very sincerely following this habit, because he realized that he needs to come out of this for a normal survival. Now he has improved a lot to level in which he could laugh at his initial notes on the irritating colleagues.
He is very happy now. I would like to end this post with a quote.
Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle - Helen Keller.
Take care,
I feel therefore I am
MoneyWell
Very interesting. A converse story -
ReplyDeleteThanks to my mom, who was very strict in making sure that I was never picky choosy in food habits, I can now adapt to any food anywhere in the world (even hostel, NCC camp food !)
I just hope that the tolerance extends to other aspects of life as well.