Tolerance and Patience

Tolerance and Patience are different sides of the same coin. 

As per the dictionary, their definitions are as follows:

Patience means the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.

Tolerance means the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with.

So, patience is to do with capacity, and tolerance with ability.

However, what people can tolerate, and how much patience they can give towards their goals depends a lot on how they interact with others, how they understand others, how they react to others, and how others react to and understand them.

Sometimes, tolerance can be given to a person, a daily activity or thing undeserving of the time you give to them- for example, a bad girlfriend or boyfriend. This is when they take advantage of you in the name of love, and you tolerate it because you love them.

It can take a while for you to take off your rose-tinted glasses, and you lose a bit of yourself every time you give in to their demands. 

Also, patience can be given to a person or daily activity or thing undeserving of the attitude you have with them. You let their flaws and foibles go time and time again, and again, you lose a bit of yourself as they take you apart piece by piece with their selfish and possibly narcissistic attitude.

These are extremes of course, and they are part of what makes us human. It is how we adapt, learn, and progress.

But knowing when to exercise tolerance and when to be very patient is like learning to use a knife to peel and chop loads of onions!

Funny metaphor, yes? But a good one, because when you chop an onion, you have to be tolerant of the tears you will cry due to the interaction of sulphur-based chemicals (produced from cutting the onions) with your hydrogen and oxygen-based tears, and you have to be patient especially when you have to cut lots of them!

Anyhow, the main points I'm getting to are:

• Learn to use your patience and tolerance to your advantage. Make them strengths.

• Know that it will be uncomfortable to tell others when your limit is reached, but understand there is a way to tell them with compassion, not derision or anger.

• Know how to say it in a good way- calm and in a low tone. There are no winners in an argument and saying what you need to in an explosively angry manner and a loud tone gains you no fans and just makes the other person more defensive of their viewpoint.

And remember- you're a human, not a robot. You can't just go on and on and on and on taking whatever flak is going on you. A robot can take it to infinity and beyond when it comes to patience and tolerance because they could essentially be immortal (if upkeep of their bodies and brains are maintained). You aren't.

So:

Never: reply when you're angry.

Never: make a promise when you're happy.

Never: make a final decision when you're sad.

Always exercise Patience and Tolerance, and wait at least 24 hours before making any decision so that it is objective, pragmatic and not emotionally influenced. 

Know your limits.

Enjoy your day!

Three Poems in the Sun

Inspired by this glorious weather whilst sitting on a field of green, I thought I'd write three poems. All different in style, and experiments to illustrate different thought patterns...

Sun, Blue Sky, Music

Green field,

Blue Sky,

Yellow Sun,

Birds Fly!

Sweet Tunes,

Smooth Melody,

Chromatic Scales,

Mellow Harmonies!

Cool Shorts

Bright Shirt

Bucket Hat

No Skirt!

Cold drinks

Snack food

Picnic mat

Happy mood!

Close friends

Fa-mi-ly

This is where

I like to be!

Thinking of the Possibilities

A line of trees are on the horizon,

With a field of grass, verdant,

Blades waving in the wind

Hearing the wind

Invisible though it is,

Making its presence known as much

As the music being channeled

Though my earphones.

I think my thoughts,

Stare across in absentness

Dwelling upon my mind's eye

Dreaming brief day dreams

Of what things I could have done

In a parallel life

In a different timeline.

The decisions made that split you 

Off the path of all possibilities

Onto a linear road

Where sidelines are additions to the main,

Where free will is around

But watched by a God that is

Omnipresent.

Omnicient.

And you are one consciousness

Interacting, floating, 

through the multitudes

Of many.

Park Sounds

Swish, Swish

Sounds the Grass

Makes while caressed by the Wind

Whooooo, Oooooo

Sounds the Wind

Makes travelling through the trees

Rustle, Rustle

Sounds the Trees

Make as the wind bustles through

Tweet, Tweet

Sounds the Birds

Make as the tree branches sway

Crackle, Crackle

Sounds my feet

Make walking on dead leaves

Onward, Onward

Words my heart

Makes as I amble towards 

Home

Food and Dieting

Definition of a diet by the dictionary:

Definition of a diet by Jennifer (yours truly):

The amount of food you put into yourself to gain enough energy to do all your daily activities. 

I used to think 'to be on a diet' and 'to diet' or 'to go on a diet' were good phrases. However, as I've grown older, I've realised they have negative connotations, and I have decided that the word 'diet' by my definition, should not be called a diet. It should be called a Healthy Eating Plan.

That sounds more positive, eh? 

Anyhow, I touched upon my plan in an earlier post when I said:

My plan is simple: have a bit of everything you want in moderate quantities, and vary the amount of what you have depending on the time of day.

This plan allows for chocolate and sweet stuff and all sorts of lovely things like FRIED CHICKEN, but only in the daytime, and in moderation.

Eating lots of veg and rice daily is the norm for me, and I've tried all sorts of diets where cutting out certain foodstuffs was the recommendation. It worked for a time, but I'd feel jaded and would then discontinue the diet because I missed such foodstuffs. I just really enjoy food!

And with my mindset and my very active job nowadays, I need those calories to burn! Using my Fitbit as a guide, I do on average 20000 to 25000 steps a day, with my top score being 41041 steps recently. 

The only thing I need to be careful of is my off days, where my body just wants all those calories but doesn't burn off as much. It takes a certain discipline to modify my mindset to eat a bit less, and I am not always successful. But most of the time, I'm okay.

Let's see what I'm like when I retire, lol!

Fear and Progression

I've been listening to an audio-book written by Curtis Jackson aka Fifty Cent on how he earned his millions, thorough a mixture of savvy marketing, broad investments across many interests- amongst them liquor, the creation of G-Unit, and his TV series Power.

In his audio-book, he talked about fear and it made me wonder…

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a coward and a hero? Well, there is none. The only difference is the action each takes when faced with a situation of critical importance. A hero can still be scared stiff but will face the situation head-on despite it. 50 Cent stated that the only thing holding a person back from progressing is fear. And that it was that fear that stopped one of his good friends from becoming the business mogul they could have been, and becoming a has-been, despite having all the attributes and knowledge to succeed.

Even if you know all that can be known about the job you are in- if you don't have the right attitude, if your heart is not 100 per cent into what you are doing, and you don't know how to adapt to others to ensure their comfortability and trust is 100 per cent in you- then it will be hard to succeed, to move onwards and upwards in the direction you want to go in in life. At least, that's what I think!

You will end up frustrated until you accept your shortcomings and work on improving them, until you understand that others are not you and that your high standards are not standard across the board, until you accept that you have to work with what you have and treat them in such a way that you get the best out of everyone.

Being self-aware is actually rather difficult to achieve as it means letting go of a certain level of selfishness and not going so far with your self-focus that it becomes narcissistic.

Knowing who you are and not being afraid of other people's opinions of you are worthy goals that a lot of people don't achieve until they are elderly enough to not give a damn!

It took me until...well, let's just say it took me a long while before I felt confident enough in myself and my abilities to know what I am capable of! I am still earning my degree in Human Nature from the School of Life, but I have good people around me that I can learn from and I hope they learn as much from me and my experiences as I do from them. 

Anyway, off I go to still learn! (And if I learn as much as I read, I'll be a superb scholar at my life's end!)