Software for Your Head

ANTIPATTERN: WRONG TOLERANCE

PROBLEM

You tolerate behaviors that don't work well.

SUPPOSED SOLUTION

Learn to live with life in the “real world” or complain to others who can fix the problems.

To “tolerate” means to permit something, or to allow another's action to pass without acting effectively to the contrary. If what you are tolerating is something good, tolerance is virtuous. Conversely, tolerating the undesirable is akin to creating it.

Whenever you perceive that a virtue is missing or that a vice is present, you either tolerate the situation or try to change it. If you cannot “fix” it, you can at least withdraw your participation. The problem with tolerating the absence of virtue or the existence of vice is that this choice summons ...