The Noble Art Of Tolerance.

by Englishman 4 Replies latest jw friends

  • Englishman
    Englishman

    One thing that used to grieve me about my childhood. Whenever I misbehaved - which was quite often - my Mum would berate me for my immediate sin, and then drag up all of the other mistakes that I had ever made. It was as though she was keeping a running total of all my mistakes. Consequently, it only took the slightest thing to put her tolerance level over the top. She would first of all point out the immediate flaw and then follow it with "and you did this and you did that and you did the other..." ad infinitum.

    What was happening was that her tolerance level was always on the point of overflowing because she was unable to see each isolated incident as being precisely just that: An isolated incident. Instead she was in a perpetual state of "having had it up to here" for much of the time.

    I see the same thing happening on DB's all the time now. I've even seen examples of someone hating someone else so much that they advertise their hatred for that person as their signature. Imagine carrying a grudge around so that it's permanently there for all to see!

    Just lately I've been feeling a lot more benevolent to my fellow posters because I've tried to remember to not tot things up in that familiar old pattern that I picked up all those years ago. Maybe at 58 I'm actually learning "not to keep account of the injury" anymore.

    Whatever. I feel much happier for it.

    Englishman.

  • LittleToe
    LittleToe

    I've got a terrible memory for grievances. Leave me alone for long enough and I'd probably forget if I'd been slated.

    At the time I've probably got little tolerance for intolerance, though.

    I should probably take the motto "this, too, shall pass".

    LT, of the "happy as an idiot with his own turnip" class

  • rebel8
    rebel8

    You are 104 years old so surely you've seen the publications in the '80s that told parents and spouses not to keep track of past transgressions and bring them up just for the sake of berating the person you're arguing with. As a kid I used to point this stuff out to my mother ...her violations of what the literature said to do (not to say "I love you but you do such and such wrong", keeping track of mistakes, refusing to give kids reasons for saying no to requests, not spanking solely out of frustration, etc.)....of course that never worked...it would just earn me a session with the wooden spoon and earned me the title of "fresh, snotty snip".

  • BrendaCloutier
    BrendaCloutier

    I must say that my parents (my mom...dad didn't do much in the way of discipline) were very good about it. If I was misbehaving in a meeting or out in public, I was told to stop. If I continued, I was told that if I continued, I'd get a spanking when we got home. When I continued I got a spanking when I got home.... no matter how long I sat in the locked bathroom! I was 12 before I knew that the bathroom door could be unlocked from the outside. Past grievences were past and not brought up unless there was a valid reason.

  • Sirona
    Sirona

    Great post eman

    It is difficult sometimes to forgive and forget but when it comes to discussion board greivances, I always think that life had enough s**t to put up with and we should just not take it all too seriously.

    Well I think that when it isn't me who is arguing LOL

    Sirona

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit