To Understand Another

Tolerance. . . How many of us would dare to ask God tonight to deal with us tomorrow as we have dealt with others today; to bestow on us the same understanding and tolerance we showed others today? What an idea, you say. Yet, how often we become intolerant of others when they do not conform to what we think is right and proper. When people spoke harshly of the Southern people, Abraham Lincoln replied, "Don't criticize them; they are just what you and I would be under similar circumstances." An alcoholic seeking true tolerance must keep forever fresh in his mind that he too was once a hopeless drunk and his recovery was a slow process; that his recovery will never be anything resembling completeness as long as he entertains thoughts of intolerance toward anyone. Every individual is an individual. This means he has his own set of feelings, his own kind of training and education, his own peculiar habits, likes and dislikes and, although some of these may need changing to make the program simpler for him, we can't always win him over to our point of view no matter what we do or say. In ridding ourselves of intolerance we must understand the motivating power behind another's behavior and grant him the privilege of being just as queer as we are. Maybe we would act the same under similar circumstances. Tolerance is the positive effort to understand another's beliefs, habits and practices without necessarily accepting them ourselves.