Love, Compassion, and Tolerance

I'm sorry for not posting a little something last night, but I got in late and I was very tired. I didn't go out tonight, so I'm pretty wide awake and I thought I'd share a little bit about a conversation I had last night about tolerance. I wont go into all the details, because that's not what I wanted to share today, rather it reaffirmed my belief that love, compassion, and tolerance are the cornerstones of a spiritual life.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I probably wasn't as tolerant of one of the people I was talking to as I should've been, and the reason was because I didn't believe he was being tolerant.

I really dislike racism and bigotry. Perhaps it's because my family is very ethnically diverse, so if someone tells a racist joke there's a good chance he's offending one of my ancestors. Anyways, during my conversation with this person he said some things that I felt were racist. It sparked a little flame inside of me and I got upset.

The problem is that I lost my love and compassion for this person. I made a decision that he didn't deserve to be shown love or compassion, when he did. I need to apologize to this person for my actions and I will, however I also understand that it's alright for me to still dislike racism and bigotry.

I guess what I learned was that it's not always easy to be tolerant. I'm going to get upset, whether it's because someone pulled out in front of me while I was driving, or someone said something to offend me. In the end it's how I act that's important. I can decide whether to walk away or fight. In most cases walking away is the best solution, because it will prevent me from hurting others or getting hurt myself. It sounds like a simple solution, but that means I must be willing to walk away.

That doesn't mean that I can't stick up for myself or my beliefs, the thing I have to remember is that I need to be loving and compassionate when I do so. If my discussion is turning into an argument, then it's time to end the discussion.

Something else I need to do is a little bit of soul searching, so I can find the other areas of my life where I'm intolerant. And I guess that's where I'm going to leave off. I just wanted to say I'm enjoying this blog so far. It's helping me alot and giving me some time to reflect. If you have any comments, please feel free to leave them.

Until next time, take care of yourselves.