We read a lot about how we should be more tolerant. Tolerance is commonly considered to be essential for living harmoniously together. This posting is about why intolerance is a virtue and how we should all aim to be more intolerant. If that’s not bad enough, we should also try to be more impatient. We definitely need more intolerance and impatience in our lives.

Of course, I am not advocating that we discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender or lifestyle choices. In these areas, we do need to practice tolerance. We need to understand the viewpoints of others and appreciate the richness of life. This type of tolerance recognises the importance of individuality, which every freedom loving person understands. Similarly, we shouldn’t cultivate zero patience.

However, we should be intolerant with those who waste our time, those who sap our energy for no return and those who crush our dreams for their own ends. We should be intolerance of mediocrity and broken promises. We should be impatient with those who don’t deliver what they say they will and don’t uphold their end of a bargain.

Intolerance should be a measured, predefined response to any action that arbitrarily reduces our freedom. It is not a knee jerk reaction or emotional in nature. To use my hot stove analogy, the hot stove doesn’t have any personal agenda – if you touch it, the predefined, consistent response is that it burns you.

Every steel beam or structural part has a certain load bearing tolerance. Beyond that point, it doesn’t function properly. We need to be like that steel beam, and know what we will and will not tolerate.

For example, at work, someone may expect us to consistently work extra hours for no additional pay in order to compensate for deficiencies in their own work. In this case, being tolerant means accomodating the request – letting them shift their responsibility onto you. Intolerance means looking out for your own interests and refusing to be taken advantage of. So you would refuse to work extra just to make someone else look good.

Similarly, impatience means that we put a limit on the time that something will take. It is said that good things come to those who wait, but often the case is that people wait, and nothing ever happens. Someone with infinite patience will not set a time limit on completion of an action. That is why impatience is a virtue for someone who values accomplishment.

For example, you may have a tradesman coming to refinish your kitchen. He doesn’t turn up to appointments, or rings you and repeatedly cancels. How long should you wait for him to show up? Should you wait 3 months, and keep taking time off work to wait for him to show up, or should you start looking for someone else? If you practice the virtue of impatience and “time box” an action, you will be more satisfied with the outcome.

So, in summary, intolerance and impatience can be virtues for the free person. We put up with a lot that we don’t need to, and this limits our life choices. Often people confuse tolerance and patience with not setting limits and therefore compromise their freedom and let others rob them of time, freedom and money. So we need to have our clear limits and be prepared to maintain those boundaries.

Tags: boundaries, impatience, intolerance, limits, mediocrity

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Self-actualization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.