Sara Dessen, the author of What happened to Goodbye stated..."Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.”
Beyond unselfish love, there is nothing more humane than that of the capacity to have tolerance and to forgive another.
There has never been a need for both of these things more than now and yet there is so much that we don't understand about both of those.
For this particular post, I want to concentrate the space between "Love" and "Tolerance".
First and foremost, love should be unfiltered and organic. No labels, no parameters, no barriers.
Love should not be regulated to a particular space versus occupying "All" spaces of our lives.
Hence the saying...."It's All Love..."
The only thing that should influence how any of us can view love is in what capacity and how long it has been in existence.
Meaning, the relationship defines how you interact with the love you feel for another.
And yet in the end, it is still just "Love".
It is because of that I find the term "Agape" to be most accurate to my perspective of love and how we should use it.
That leads me to a very important and impacting statement. We often confuse the concept of love with forgiveness and just as importantly tolerance.
Agape love requires me to love you for exactly who you are. No exceptions.
So although, we have to accept someone for who they are, we do not have accept their poor behavior. Especially if it is not conducive to positive personal growth.
And that is rub right?
There is that weird balance point where what we do, why we do what we do and who we share it with conflicts with how they actually add impact and more importantly value to our lives.
So yes, love them, accept them, but never ever tolerate "consistent" poor behavior.
Here is a saying I use on a regular basis.
"The best type of apology is one that both sincere and infrequent."
But even in that we need to be mindful. Our lives are not compost sites for the poor actions of others.
First and foremost we have to ensure we are taking the time to both see and understand the people we meet and include in our lives. Then we have to learn how to be discerning enough to live up to our values, and choose people who resonate with those self same values.
Loving someone is not always a choice we get to make, but sharing our lives with this is.
Does this mean to quickly walk away from a relationship because someone had poor behavior?
Of course not.
Each and all of us make mistakes, some more than others, but we missed the perfect train day one. That being said, we have make sure we can "SEE" who we are dealing with outside of the images we have created for them and about them.
You see, no one should be expected to reveal every single detail about themselves on the first few dates. It simply isn't reasonable. And if you are saying to yourself, that you don't want to waste your time, then you are more into disqualifying with a check list than you are qualifying with a values list.
Ouch....ya'll not ready for that conversation. Don't worry...I got you next time.
So...where do we stand?
Right here....in a place where we learn to love ourselves, create a value list, get rid of core behaviors and learn to truly see people without judgement.
Assessment yes, but never judgement.
And then...we hold them accountable to be the person they have shown us that they are.
We communicate, find balance and work on things collectively.
But we never....ever continuously accept poor behavior.
Maya Angelo said..."When people show you who they are..believe them."
Knowing that, knowing yourself will give you the balance and growth you need to know when to say I accept your apology and when to say I accept your apology, but we have to deal with each other differently.
Then and only then will hearing the words "I'm sorry" have lasting results.
Speaker...Coach...King...Warrior...Architect