All of us..well, most of us are brought up by our guardians / parents with love and care. Initially, we grow up with the feeling that the world begins and ends with us. We are the centre of the universe for our family and wrongly start believing that this holds true for everyone. Slowly, reality starts sinking and we begin to make concessions for others to have more importance than us. That is when we first raise our tolerance level a little bit. Then, we start hearing criticism about ourselves – from friends, neighbours, teachers…. Did you see how crooked her teeth are….. isn’t this the third time she has worn the same dress …. How untidily you write…..and your cocooned world comes crashing down. Didn’t Mom say I was the most beautiful girl in the world….didn’t Granny say that I looked like a princess irrespective of what I wore… Dad had sworn that I was a child prodigy… that I was Einstein in the making… whatever happened to all that???
Your tolerance then increases and you learn to rise above all this. Your world expands to include some people more beautiful and more intelligent than your own self.
Come teens and the jumping hormones play havoc with our already ravaged mind and body. Now is the time to find our idol, our ideal… we are on the threshold of entering erstwhile forbidden areas.. we are now allowed (albeit a little reluctantly) to go to parties, travel alone by public transport…so thrilling! Such a show of chivalry and courage! I will box his ears if he even as much as looks at me……. I will stop talking to her if she tells them I borrowed her dress. … these and many more such declarations are forgotten and buried in our memories. Again we raise the bar to tolerate deceit, to tolerate back-stabbing, to break a few more illusions about others…and yes… a few about ourselves also.
Then, the hot-headedness of youth takes over and we become crusaders..men on a mission to change the world. We advise our maid not to take shit from her drunkard husband, egg her on to revolt against him… tell our employed friends to stop being a wimp… hey, why don’t you just walk out on that stinking job? So what if you have kids? Tell our neighbour to stop being a housewife and grab that job… kids will learn to manage…
Then its time for us to get into the “real” world. We learn to ADJUST. Drunkard husbands are not alcoholics.. just “social” drinkers.. that bruise on the face is an allergy … you know how pollution is increasing…. Bosses are not rude or barbarians.. they are just having a bad day.. that’s all…. Husbands are not wayward.. they are just being “boys will be boys”… Your children are not criminals, they are just different! Raise that bar of tolerance….. raise a toast to peace!
Did we know we had it in us to drink so much poison without even the slightest flinching, without a murmur? Would we have believed that the carefree child within us would readily agree to be fettered? Did we know that amidst all the ugliness of our life, we would still continue to live it and accept it? Did we know our capacity to tolerate?
Let others change the world… I am too busy adjusting in here.
