endure; difficult, negative, bad, power etc. It is defined as resilience to situations. A person’s physiology and psychology also affect the level of tolerance.
Physiology has a very important effect on a person’s tolerance level. Whether a person’s physiological needs are met or not affects the level of tolerance. Factors such as insomnia, hunger, fatigue, and illness affect our body physiologically and therefore our endurance. It cannot be expected that the tolerance of the person when he gets sleep and when he does not sleep is the same. Or, the tolerance of a sick person to the noise of children is not the same as he will in a healthy period.
In this article, I would like to talk about the effects of tolerance that depend on perception rather than its physiological effects. Our thoughts and perceptions about events are very determinative on our level of tolerance.
One of the perceptions that leads to intolerance is the perception of necessity. If the person thinks that something should or should not happen, he cannot tolerate the opposite of this perception of necessity. In other words, we cannot tolerate the absence of something we think should happen or something that should not happen, and we show intolerance. For example, a person who thinks that his child should go to sleep early in the evening gets angry and cannot tolerate his child’s early sleep. Or, a person who thinks that he should not make any mistakes, cannot tolerate this situation when he makes a mistake. The boy had to sleep early! but he did not sleep. One should not have made a mistake! but he made a mistake. What should have happened did not happen, what should not have happened. In other words, it was the opposite of what was considered a necessity. So, are the things we see as imperatives really a necessity? What is really necessary is the satisfaction of needs; like eating, sleeping, breathing. They are a necessity, but the child’s early sleep is not an obligation, but a request or expectation. In fact, most of the things we see as obligations are our wishes, expectations and preferences. Sleeping early is also a wish, as is wishing not to make mistakes. When we attach the label of necessity to our requests and these requests do not exist, we cannot tolerate it, we show intolerance. We can’t tolerate the absence of compulsions, okay, but can we tolerate the absence of wants? We can feel sadness, anger, or disappointment when we don’t have our wishes, but it’s easier for us to tolerate it. We can take a more flexible attitude towards the absence of requests. But the things we see as necessity; Have to be! We cannot tolerate their absence.
The second perception that leads to intolerance is the perception of continuity. We can tolerate occasional negative situations, but we cannot tolerate a constant negative situation. Even if we don’t find it hard in the beginning, it starts to force us after a while. For example, imagine stretching your arm forward and standing like this. This posture is not difficult at first, but you cannot stand like this for hours and your arm will fall. Things that are not difficult in the beginning force the person when they are constant. Parent to the child because he forgot his belongings at school; “continually! Let’s say you forget something at school. It can be tolerated if the child occasionally forgets something at school, but not if it is constantly forgotten. Or one of the spouses to the other; “You never made me! Let’s say you don’t understand. It is tolerable for a person to occasionally not understand another person, but not to constantly understand another person. So what actually happens to us is what we encounter all the time? What we think is permanent is not really what is permanent. Sometimes, occasionally, sometimes they are things that we encounter, but when we attribute continuity to them, we cannot tolerate them. It is unrealistic for something to be permanent. A child doesn’t always forget his belongings, sometimes he forgets, sometimes he forgets, but he doesn’t forget all the time, and it’s not that a person doesn’t always understand another person. Sometimes he does not understand, sometimes he does not understand, but it is not always that he does not understand. The perception of continuity is unrealistic and prevents us from enduring.
So what’s the solution? What we perceive as necessity, not as necessity; to see it as a choice, wish and expectation and to accept the fact that our wishes may not come true sometimes. A more flexible approach may be in question when the perception of necessity leaves its place to wishes and expectations. Likewise, realizing that the perception of continuity is not actually continuous can make us more tolerant and easier to tolerate. Nothing is permanent or permanent. As Mevlana said; “Everything is temporary, O heart. Look, even the breath that you just took has passed away. Be content with what is permanent.”
