Let's Accept!

Feeling blue made me accept my mother's invitation to help her out with some spring cleaning and with my father not around she decided to clean his side of the closet first. Unlike my mother he isn't bothered by clutter, even if it's something he has no need for. So she ended up cleaning out dust balls and putting every item back neatly where it had been. At first, I felt cross how could my mother who practiced minimalism put up with junk that was outdated and not required? I started berating, "Mom! Why is Dad holding onto all these things? How come you taught us about declutter but not him?"  She educates me, "It's his wish, we can't force anyone to change!" 

Clearly 'Moms Wisdom' to declutter did not apply to my Dad! Yet she was right, it wasn't a government diktat or a compulsion regulated by health advisers that my father had to adhere to. This did not stop her from reorganizing his drawers. I wanted to tell her how she was accommodating a certain habit she found distasteful while she tightened wayward buttons. But then she tells me with a smile, "I don't discard anything from his closet. But he has also never opposed when I declutter the rest of the house!"  

I chuckled and silently admired how there was a mutual understanding and acceptance for 'space' between them, it made me reflect that I had been wrong to judge. "To each their own." I too had my share of annoying habits and without unwanted interventions on them, I was happy. 

Whether it be at home or outside, we find flaws in others easily. We humans are rigid and suspect change yet try hard to enforce changes on others so that they become 'acceptable' as per our measures. We incessantly criticize and justify it under the garb of concern, as if our opinion handed down is the superior guide for improvisations suggested! People poke fun at size, shape, age, colour, race, ideology that isn't familiar to them; its true humans can be mean and judgemental.

Society asks too many questions if married couples do not birth kids; if women don't like or know cooking; if boys cry and don't enjoy sports; if couples get divorced; if eligible men or women are unmarried, etc. Gossip knows no bounds, snide remarks have no limitations, even jokes become trolls that are hurtful and we still make-believe that others should have taken it with a pinch of salt. We are not Gods reincarnated yet we claim higher moral ground and very conveniently forget how we too are imperfect. Our rigidity is toxic as it knows no kindness! 

Tolerance isn't just an individual's capacity to endure pain, though I'm sure that those who face criticism regularly have high levels of it! When we are blessed with this virtue then nothing seems abnormal or outrageous. It is a willingness to accept each individual as they come; whether they be perfect, flawed, scarred, broken, or even a work in progress. And we are never too old or too young to adapt this open-minded mantra. It is a kind and compassionate practice to allow others to feel comfortable in their skin. 

Awareness of others, awareness of nature, and self-awareness is the new-age mandate for co-existence!

My mother's rhetoric when I learnt to reason would be, "Look at your hand! Are all your five fingers the same?"  

Whether made by God or Nature, here was a sound example to welcome that each individual is unique and we must embrace them as they are, with no strings attached! Who are we to judge anyone? Even a life well-lived would be incomplete without learning tolerance and applying it with kindness.

Unashamed to admit, I am still learning this humbling ethic and am reminded of it every day!