The Insidiousness of Tolerating...

Image by ASM Asaduzzaman from Pixabay

One of my favorite books of all time is Peaks & Valleys by Spencer Johnson. It’s a parable about the ups and downs of life and how when we are on a peak we feel grateful for all we have and when we are in a valley we long for what’s missing, which can motivate us to climb to the peak again. 

Something he brushes against, but doesn’t really explore is the insidious place that is between the peak and valley. He calls it the plateau, and it is a bland ho-hum place where people just lay around (sounds kinda nice actually) and eventually the protagonist gets bored and leaves. But it’s a location where people tend to get stuck. It’s not as low as the valley, so we have a hard time feeling enough motivation to leave, which prevents us from reaching a higher peak. 

A more accurate term could be toleration.

You can reach it on your way down from a peak or when you are climbing out of a valley. Regardless of which direction you are coming from, it can seem not that bad. Because tolerating is also rationalizing which has more to do with how we think than how we feel. When we start rationalizing after coming down from a peak, we think, “Well…at least it is not a valley.” And if we have made it out of the valley, we think, “Well, it’s no peak, but it’s a lot less stressful than where I came from.”

Tolerating requires us to accept less and allows us to avoid the worst…for a while. Tolerance was (and probably still is) a word used when our culture talked about allowing those different from us into our inner circle. We preached tolerance for women, minorities and LGBTQ individuals. And for people from those communities the offering fell a little flat. Because who wants to be just “tolerated”?

Tolerating can be a slow burn that creeps up on you. And suddenly you reached a point where you feel trapped. Because if you want to shed what you are tolerating to ascend to the peak, you have to address whatever it is you have been tolerating…which gets messy. And whether you know it or not you’ve been benefiting from tolerating it.

Toleration is a sneaky bastard. It is a master of creating a false sense of comfort. It’s like being at sea and with an almost imperceptible hole in the boat. Everything seems okay until one day you realize your vessel is filled with water. It feels like a curse, but really it’s a gift. Because like or not, you now need to make a decision.

You can give up and go down with the ship Ahab-style. You can start bailing, though you are just fighting the inevitable. Or you can swim to shore. Possibly procure a new more seaworthy vessel and find a trusted mate so you are not alone on your next voyage. No decision comes with guarantees, but making no decision at all is still a decision.

I’m tolerating something. It is a situation that I initially felt victim to, and then oscillated between anger and despair. For a while I managed to even the keel, so I could steer the vessel. I was under no illusion that the situation had been resolved, but I stopped living in fear of sharks and tidal waves. I could sleep at night. I could tolerate it some more… until recently I realized I couldn’t.

Like a fool, I fell for the bailing technique. I told myself I have the stamina to keep afloat. But I don’t. So now I need to make a different decision. I’m not sure what it is yet but my feet are getting wet...