I found the following definition of tolerance; “The ability or willingness to tolerate something (or someone), in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.” So, what does it mean to tolerate? Well a definition I found indicates that it is accepting or enduring someone or something one finds unpleasant or dislikes, with patient self-control. I want to focus primarily on what is going on around us today. I find it very disconcerting and disheartening that we, as a people, can no longer “tolerate” someone who looks differently than we do, who thinks differently than we do, who loves differently than we do and/or thinks of “God” differently than we do. As a student of quantum and metaphysics, my readings include books, by Napoleon Hill, Robert Collier, Genevieve Behrend, James Allen, Wallace D. Wattles to name a few. In Wattles book; The Science of Getting Rich, he writes; “There is a thinking Stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought, in this Substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon Formless Substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.”
In his book; In Tune with the Infinite, Ralph Waldo Trine writes; “The optimist is right. The pessimist is right. The one differs from the other as the light from the dark. Yet both are right. Each is right from his own particular point of view, …” And from the New Testament; “Love thy neighbor, but who is your neighbor. Your neighbor is the one who is sent to you from the Divine. Your neighbor can be one who is a total stranger to you from afar. Your neighbor can be someone living close to you. But what is true is that your neighbor is one of the Light who needs your support as much as you need his.”
So, what if? What if we were all just a little bit more tolerant? What if we paid more attention to our thoughts of each other? What if we recognize that even though someone thinks differently than we do, they are right, and we are right? What if every time we had a negative thought about someone else, we asked ourselves, What, would Jesus do? What would love, do? This is the way I choose to live my life. I’m far from perfect, but I’d rather be imperfect at loving my fellow man, then perfect at hating him.
Contact me if you would love to learn how to reprogram your thoughts and become a bigger, better version of you.
Rich Schmelke
941-276-1123