“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” — Dalai Lama
It has often been said that patience is a virtue, and we might add tolerance to that as well. For the most part, we don’t really think about this to deeply and if we do . . . dismiss it out of hand. Why? What is it that turns us away from having patience or tolerance for others, but more importantly ourselves? We can’t escape the presence of those who may irritate, bother, distract, aggravate, or cause us great distress. Sometimes, we don’t recognize the cause of our on-going distaste is first found within, by who we think we are. We’ve sold ourselves the proverbial bill of goods, and for some reason it’s not working. It doesn’t work, simply because we haven’t dug deep enough and excavated all the layers of the lies we boldly told ourselves . . . just to show up in life. Marcus Aurelius stated it another way, “Look within. Within is the fountain of good and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.”
As an educator, I had a front row seat in watching this phenomenon manifest itself on a daily basis. With 200 young people each day, I was privy to a great deal of the exchanges/interchanges of how humanity functions on a myriad of levels. In my experience, with time those fundamental character traits don’t change to much and result in young adults with skill sets that help them to flourish, or go in another direction . . . less favorable. There really wasn’t a flexible margin in this regard, which I found profoundly telling. Those young people who were able to have the patience/tolerance first with themselves, honed the practiced skill sets to withstand whatever was thrown at them from outside influences that were distasteful, judgmental, hurtful, harmful or dismissive. I have always said, that I learned a great deal from my young charges at whatever age I had the great fortune to know them. My students taught me a great deal about the practice of tolerance, and opened the door to reaching the depths of patience I never knew existed.
Teachers, educators and mentors abound in our life’s journey, when we avail ourselves consciously of those principles hidden not only in their words, but more importantly in their actions. In some instances, those that annoy us beyond endurance may be the best teachers that will ever show up in our lives. If we are presently aware in that moment, they can teach more than we might imagine conceivable. We just need to release ourselves from the bonds of judgment, and practice the mastery of conscious integrity through the freedom of our own existence. This is not easy, and takes a profound conscious choice of will and earnestness to even begin. With that said the words of Aristotle become a bit more acute . . . “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Those that raise your ire, challenge your existence, demean your integrity, harass your character and suppress your being will stretch your patience, tolerance and principles to the limit. They are the teachers of your perfection and excellence, which enlightens you truth giving you conscious freedom through mastery. JLR